I've been lurking around here for about year now, and finally started posting a little earlier this spring, but I figured I'd use this space as a blog of sorts to showcase my 69. This might get heavy on the reading at times, so I won't feel bad if you just want to look at the pictures. With help from my dad, I picked this 1969 Skylark Custom convertible the day before my 20th birthday back in 1998. I'm now 32 and both the car and I have gone through many changes over the past 12 years. I had no idea what I was buying at the time, all I know was this was a cool looking 60's car, and it was a convertible to boot! I really didn't know a Buick from a Chevy at the time, and even naively thought that this had a Chevy engine in it. The internet was still growing at the time, but I was surprised at all the information I was able to find on my car once I started look. What I had was a fairly well equipped Skylark Custom with a 350-2 and TH350, power steering, power drums, AM (non working) radio. I was the third owner and the seller gave me all the documentation he had with it including the original bill of sale, window sticker and protect-o-plate. Here's what I looked like the day after I got it and a shot of the original engine. As you can see, the front was a bit messed up, but at the time I didn't even realize it. I would later come to find out there was a lot more wrong with the body too. One of the first things I did was swap out the wheels for a set of 14x7 Western Wheels I got from a fellow Buick GS owner down in Texas. Things then took a turn for the worse, when 3 months later while on my way to work, some idiot decided to just stop in the middle of the road to let a passenger off, causing a chaing reaction, which ended with me a few inches up into the car in front of me. The front end was obliterated, and I was devestated, but determined to get it back together. I tore down the front, and removed everything that had been damaged. I also went a bit further and started removing parts that hadn't been damaged, but that I wanted to improve. Thanks to a great Buick community, some folks got together to help and one of them was kind enough to donate a 68 Special for me to use for parts. I was getting good at tearing these things down by now, so I quickly had every usable piece off of it and in my parents back yard. Anything I didn't need at the time I sold to help finance the rebuild. One one of my trips to a scrap yard for parts, I came across a 70 buick 350 with a 4 bbl on top, so I pulled the top end of it off and brought it home. I cleaned up the manifold myself, but had a shop rebuild the Q jet for me. Once I had that taken care of, it was just a few more weeks before I had everything back together.
Unfortunately not long after I had it back together in one piece, bad luck struck again. As I was driving on the highway going about 65-70, my left rear tire blew up. To this day, i'm still unclear as to how the tire blew up, considering it was only about 7 months old with probably less then 500 miles on it. They were all properly inflated, I know I had just checked everything over because I was about to show off my handy work to a fellow gearhead buddy of mine. The explosion from the tire scared me to death, and still being an inexperienced 20 year old, I slammed on the brakes. This mistake sent my car into an uncontrollable spin, in which the font end clipped a light pole. I'm still thankful to this day that I didn't hit that lightpole head on, or I might not be here. I was wearing the lap belt, but I don't know how much that would have helped my head hitting the steering wheel on a 65mph head on collision. So I had just destroyed the new bumper, grille and hood I had only just put on from the 68 parts car a week earlier. At least this time, the core support and fenders weren't damaged. On my search for yet another hood at Sping Carlisle the next year, I came across a 69 GS hood that would change the course of the rebuild from then on...
Glad you're sticking with the step child. Experience taking them apart and putting them back together may not be the only way to learn about these Buicks, but I guarantee you it's the best way. Good luck on the road to "Finally Finished", but I bet you and the rest of us will never get there.
Well every car has its story and now you are a siginificant part of your cars story. Keep up the good work it will be rewarding once you are done if it isnt already. Keep us posted. Regards, 455NGLIDE
Thanks for the encouragement Guys! It's actually come a long way since, but like you said, it'll probably never be done. I found some more pictures from around the time I first picked it up. Shown in the first picture are the wire rims it came with, which were quickly removed. The next problem happend shortly after my brithday in 1999. Coming home from a road trip with a friend of mine, I was about 10 minutes from home when the engine started making some awful sounds. Turns out it was spinning the bearings in it. The pesky Buick oiling system had caught up with me. During the past year as I had gotten to know just about every nut and bolt in the car, I had also discovered it had already been in previous accidents and had already had a good bit of body work done before I got it. The right left front fender had been replaced, which I could tell from the way it had been painted, the right rear quarter had been pulled back into shape, as I determined from the 20 or so holes drilled and filled into it, and the area just about the bumper had been reshaped (badly) with a lot of putty. The paint was so think in parts that it was starting to just brake off. So with this in mind, and the irritation of having people constantly call it a Cutlass, I decided I was going to go a head and make this car the way I wanted it. The first step was to pull the 350 out. With the help from my parents we yanked it out one afternoon in May, and I quickly sold off everything I could from it. You can see here, I had found a new bumper and grille to replace the second set I killed. I decided that I liked the look of the 68 grille better, and I had an easier time locating a 68 replacement, so that's what I went with. The car is sort of a hybrid 68/69 now. I was able to locate a 455 for sale down in Virginia that had come out of a 76 Electra 225. The owners asking price of $125 was too good to pass up, so I make the 2 hour drive from Baltimore to Manassas and picked it up using my uncles Jeep Cherokee. The engine came with the matching Q Jet, and HEI destributer, both of which I kept. I took the engine to a local engine builder, and dropped it off with the specs I wanted. 3 months later it was finished, and again with the help of my parents, we dropped the new 455 in. Here are the engine specs '76 455 bored .030 over T/A Performance 10:1 pistons Stage 1 valve springs / stock heads TA 212 cam Edelbrock performer intake Stock exhaust manifolds with mild porting. I had an exhaust shop put a 2 1/4" dual exhaust on it when I still had the 350 in. When I swapped in the 455, I just had the front tubes changed to mate with the 455. I plan to put in a 2 1/2" mandral bent system soon, but I'll be keeping the stock manifolds in place. Brand new timing cover and oil pump. I'm so glad I was able to get them before the prices skyrocketed. Some other changes are Internally regulated 140amp Powermaster alternator and new wiring. 4 core copper radiator. (this one is going to have go soon, it just barely keeps it cool on the hot days) And I'm Still using the original TH350 now with a 7 qt pan and with a custom valve body a friend built for me. I kept the original 76 Q Jet on for a while, but it was giving me trouble. At the time this was my only car, and I needed a way to get to school, so I ended up buying a new 750 cfm Edelbrock performer carb and put it on. This time, I put the Q Jet in storage rather than sell it, which I'm glad I did at the time. The Edelbrock looks good on there, but I've never been happy with it's performance. This past April (2010) I contaced Cliff Ruggles, and he's currently rebuilding the 76 Q Jet for me to match the spec of my engine. I'm hoping it'll be done around Christmas, which will be a nice present for me.
I graduated in the spring of 2000, and landed a nice job shortly after that. This allowed me to buy a new car I could use for my day to day trips without stressing about repairs to make on the Buick. So on July 4th, 2000 the Buick was retired from daily driver status. Without having to worry about the time it would take to get work done anymore, I starting working on the handling of the car. The front drums were replaced with 11" discs and I added a 1 1/4" front sway bar. All of the suspension bushings were replaced, and new springs were added, including a set of Sportwagon spec springs for the rear. The next big step came in 2001 when my father met a guy who was willing to do bodywork for a very reasonable price. It was a hobby of his, not a business, so he wasn't charging an arm and a leg for it. So I dropped it off and left him with the sacreligious instruction to fix and rework the body and to make it a GS replica. I don't care for the term clone, but I'm never going to pass it off as a true GS. Most of the cost went to supplies, and I think the whole thing cost me under $800. All of the paint was stripped, and the metal was smoothed out. He also discovered that the impact to the rear from long ago had bent some things underneath. At the time, I just told him to get it as good as he could, and I'd worry about getting the rest fixed later. Since I'd only been working for about a year, I still didn't have the money needed to get it right, but I could get it reasonably close. The work took about 3 months, but when I got it back I was ecstatic. I had it painted 1969 Corvette Silver, with a 70 Buick GSX hood style hood stripe. Again, not correct, but it's exactly what I wanted. It wasn't perfect. The bumpers were still pretty sad looking, the lines were still a little out of wack, and the right rear corner above the bumper still wasn't in the right shape, but it still looked great.
I like the part about it's exactly what you wanted. That's all that matters. I think it looks very nice also. How is the handling? Also, what has happened in the last 9 years?
Thanks for the awesome compliments guys, very much appreciated! Funny you should ask about the past 9 years. As it happens around the time I got it back from paint, I met my future wife. Projects were mostly put on hold for the next 6 years as we got married, bought our first house and started a family, but I tried to inlcude the Buick throughout. My Daughter was born in 2005, and by the spring of 2007 family life had stabalized enough for me to get back to work on things. Now that I finally had a house with a garage, I didn't need to worry about working in bad weather so I decided to tackle some of the interior. The front seat was already restored, and the rear seat actually looked almost new for being 40 years old, so I left it be. However, the doorpanels and carpet were a mess. After who know how many years it was out in bad weather with a ripped top, the water had done a number on things. I love the listening the sound of the engine as I drive, but I enjoy listening to music as well, so I also decided to add a sound system while I was at it. Here are couple pictures after I had gotten the new front seat back in. Nothing else had been done to the interior yet, but I did put some gauges under the dash to keep track of the temp and oil pressure. I started by pulling the seats out, then pulling up the carpet. Surprisingly the floor pan was intact and the only issue was surface rust. I stripped all the rust off and then cleaned and prepped the metal with POR 15 products. Then one afternoon while my daughter napped, my wife and I painted the floor with POR 15 rust preventive paint. Since I wasn't concerned about doing a show quality restoration here, I went with the product I thought most likely to keep the floor rust free. I had actually kept the radio bezel from the 68 Special parts cars all these years, so I modified it to fit a modern car radio, and put my original bezel and AM radio into storage. Next I tackled the wire for the system I was going to install, and I also added in a Tach my wife had gotten as a gift for me. Once all that was done, the new carpet and front seat went back in. Then it was time to move on to the front door panels. I was pretty nervous about this since I had never done any interior work before, and after seeing that the new panels came as bare skins I really had my doubts. This is what they looked like after removing them and all the hardware from them.
As I was preparing to undertake this daunting task, I happened to get my latest Car Craft in the mail, and as I flipping through the pages I found a great article written by Jefferson Bryant on how to replace door panels in a GTO. Using this along with some web sites I found, I finally felt ready to get started. The process went very smoothly, and before long I had them back on the doors. With the front panels done, I moved on to the rears. Once I removed the vinyl from them, I saw that the cardboard type backings had all but disintegrated. The metal was in good shape, so I cleaned it up and painted it to keep the rust at bay. I used closed cell foam to cover the panels, and 1" foam for the armrest tops. The rear ashtrays were pretty shot, and since I didn't really feel a need for them I left them out of the rear armrests. I had cut out speaker holes in the top panels early on, and went ahead and kept them when I redid the panels.
With that 2nd accident always on my mind when it comes to this car, I added a set of front shoulder harnesses after finding out they were actually an option on convertibles. Don Krebs out of Ohio made a set up for me and included everything needed to install them. I cleaned out and redid the trunk area as well. Again, the only issue I found on the trunk pan was surface rust. With everything cleaned up and painted, I installed 2 6x9 speaker boxes and a 222W amp. They're installed to the right to allow the spare tire to still sit in place. (I removed the speaker boxes in May 2011 after realizing very late that there are facotry 6x9 locations behind the rear seat) With that project done, the Buick took a back seat again for more important things. My son was born in the winter of 2007 and life became a little crazier. Flash forward to Spring 2010 and I was getting antsy again. I had a list of things I felt like were never going to get done, so intead of more procrastination, I decided to get things going. First on the list was to finally get those gross looking bumpers off. I started with the rear, and while I had it off I went through the rear wiring harness and fixed up all the contacts and connections. All the light housing and sockets were also cleaned up and painted to enhance the brightness. And the last thing I did was convert the center backup up light to a third brake light. Something I had been wanting to do for the past 10 years. Up front I decided to black out most of the headlight bezels while I was working on them.
Next on the list was the wheels. As much as I liked the Western Wheels I had on, I really liked the Buick Rallye wheels that much more. After much searching I found a decent set of used 15x7's and after a little work got them looking pretty good. Once I found a good set of center caps, it looked like a new car. The next thing that really bothered me was the condition of the seatbelts. Aside from the front shoulder harness, the rest of them were in sad shape, and the ones for the back seat were so bad they couldn't even be buckled. So again, Don Krebs made me up a set. I went with a complete set made for a hardtop because I wanted a set of hard top shoulder harnesses as well. Now that my kids were big enough to use booster seats, I wanted to make sure they would be safe in the back seat, so I used them to make a set of rear shoulder harnesses. I also finally got a set of floor mats. I went with a set of 80/20 loop with embroidered logos. As you can see it doesn't take long at all for them to get dirty. The last thing I did, which I just finished up this past week, was to add a little more to the sound system. I got a set of 4" speakers and using the original 8x10 speaker as a bracket, I mounted them under the dash, which really helped balance the sound up front. I also picked up a new Sony IPod radio, since these days I don't use CD's anymore. And that brings me up to date. There is still a lot to do, but I'm proud of it and where it stands right now. This winter, I plan to have a friend finally fix up the body issues and get everything straight again. Over the past 9 years there's been some rust spots trying to creep back in a few areas, so those will be addressed as well. I'll also be putting the Q-Jet back on once I get it back from Cliff Ruggles this winter. Down the road I'll take on the dash and try to get it looking as good as the rest of the interior. I've also picked up a B&M unimatic shifter to install. I've always wanted a floor shift car, and thought long and hard about converting it to a 4 or maybe even a 5 speed, but two things convinced me to keep the TH350. One was cost, but the other more important one was my father. About 22 years ago, he had a tumor on his spine removed. Thankfully it was not cancerous, but it did leave him without any feeling in his left leg. This makes it extremely hard, if not near impossible for him to work a clutch pedal, and since this car is for him as much as myself, I wanted to make sure he could still enjoy driving it. The unimatic shifter looks pretty close to a 4 speed shifter, and I've also had a custom shifter knob with a buick logo made for it. I think it's going to look pretty good once I get it in there. I'd also like to get a set of good heads on there one day. I know those 76 heads are pretty worthless, but for now they are getting the job done. The wish list goes on and on, but I'll just update those as they get done
I love every detail of your 69, and please next time always double check every aspect of your car, we should not neglect small details and hope that it will safely bring you to your destination. Great job!
It's been a pretty nice late summer, so I've been driving it around to some local car shows. It's always fun to get together and meet new folks each weekend, and I've even met some local Buick nuts like me. I also took it for a drive back down to my parents, and wouldn't you know it, when I got down there I noticed a nice drip drip drip and the sweet smell of antifreeze. A little stream emanating from behind the pulley and a push on the fan which wobbled the output shaft confirmed that the water pump was toast. Figures, everytime I take it back to the old stomping ground, something breaks. 3 years ago the alternator went up on me when I went down there, and now this. I decided to take a few pictures since it had been a while. I've been wanting to replace the radiator as well, and fingured this would be as good a time as any, so out it came and with a flush, along with all the old coolant. I have a few other things to tackle while I'm at it, but I'm hoping to get it finished in the next few weeks so I can get it out a few more times before winter comes.
Eric, that is an absolutely beautiful '68 Skylark. It's really quite an inspiration for me to keep hammering away on mine. I picked up my '68 when I was 15 and am now about to turn 20. It's also been quite a bonding experience for me and my father and I could never part with it, as it's become part of the family. Thanks for posting your continuing story.
Over the winter I was able to do a little bit. I was able to source a nice grille, and with a little work it was ready to go. Back when it had been painted originally the grille brackets ended up with some terrible cracking, so I took this opportunity to fix the issue. And at long last I got it on the car In january I got my Q-Jet back from Cliff's High Performance. I didn't get a chance to get it installed until last week due to the bitter cold and our 3rd child being born in March. After ironing out some vacuum leak issues with the help of the board, I got it running tonight. My next project will be to follow the guide and power time the engine, and then install a new Magnaflow 2.5" exhaust system. The muffler shop exhaust originally installed for the 350 all those years ago has been slowly rusting away.
I was waiting for some parts to arrive, so I went ahead and did the exhaust. I went with the Magnaflow 2.5" cross over exhaust, and I also used their 2.5" downpipes to connect to the stock exhaust manifolds. Everything bolted up real smoothly, I just had to trim the pipes to fit a little at the front since the kit is made to work with headers or manifolds. Here's the 13 year old 2 1/4" muffler shop exhaust I yanked out. It had dynomax super turbo's, which didn't sound too bad, but they did have a tendancy to drone at times. This could have been due to the lack of a crossover pipe as well. The new Magnaflow downpipes bolted right up to the stock manifolds. And you can also see my drip catch pan since my tranny is leaking from every single seal it has, save the new oil pan gasket. After 42 years, I can't really expect it not too. So that's another project for me to tackle this summer. The Magnaflow kit came with 3 tail pipe options, plus a set of polished tips, but I liked the stock look best. I just need to take it over to a shop now had have them weld the pipe to the rear hangers.
Glad I checked out your thread. Nice car! Love the color and of course the stripe. I am happy that you have been able to keep her through all the years. Lord knows I wish I had kept some of mine.
Thanks Gary! I've been working on the rear suspension this summer, finally replacing those 42 year old bushings in there, and doing some other upgrades along the way. First up was to box in the lower control arms and put new bushings in. Here's a picture of the before and after side by side Next came the upper control arm bushings, and to add the F41 braces. As soon as I get some more funds, I'll be adding a 1" sway bar to finish it off.
