Perfection. I was a little blah about the blackwalls, but now it is frikin ON. Thanks for the update! Cheers,
Put about 40 miles on the new Wide Ovals earlier today and met a couple friends for lunch. They ride nice.
As the preservation of this rare piece of Buick history continues, I finally had a chance to swap out the original M21 & Hurst shifter for rebuilt units I got from @buick64203 back in January. The original parts will be shelved and now I won't be reluctant to hammer the gears. It's nice having a basically new drivetrain in a 51 year old car.
As long as I've had this car, I've always wanted to dig into the area of the battery tray. Specifically, I wanted to remove it, sand the surface rust and repaint it with some POR15. I knew it wasn't rotted, per say, as the underneath just shows some surface rust but nothing crunchy. Last month, I was able to get one bolt out - rather easily - with an extractor socket Dave Johnson let me borrow. The remaining two were just too rounded off. I had a chance to get over to my friend's shop this morning and within 5 minutes, he welded nuts on both and had them out. I wish I had half his knowledge. So, he we are: a wire wheel session followed by some rust inhibitor and the new tray (and fasteners) I got from Todd Miller will be in. Crisis averted. I was also able to salvage an OEM hold down clamp I found in my stash as well.
Moving to the interior.... I've had the Eastwood sound deadener and carpet since late last year, I just needed the weather to warm up a bit to rip the guts out of it. Dave Johnson made two trips down over a few weeks, which I'm grateful for. The original carpet was still in the car, with the paper tag from Fraser Products still intact, dated November 6 of 1969. The 51 year old deadener was pulled out in pieces. Some large, some small and a lot with a puddy knife. Bonus is, the floors are absolutely perfect and you can still see factory orange ish primer. The Eastwood sound deadener is much thinner than the factory stuff and cuts rather easily. You're basically putting a puzzle together if you have a floor shift car. The assembly manual calls for extra front deadener on air conditioned cars, so Dave suggested we use some on mine. Why not? Viola!! One thing of note: that "old car" smell is no longer. It smells like fresh carpet now.
The consollete was missing all 3 studs, so I had to get creative with some machine screws and JB Weld. I ground the heads down and added a slight contour them in an effort to make them flush with that area of the consolette. Mr. Cook gave me that tip.
My speaker finally came in from Turnswitch, which was a relatively easy install. Jim Shepard here on the board rebuilt another AM Sonomatic radio that's bluetooth enabled. I'm now streaming Pandora and no one's the wiser.
Thank you, Sir. I think the tires really "finish" off the look of the car. It's funny that when it was repossessed a few months after the dealer transfer from NJ to Lebanon, PA, Gingrich Motor Company saw fit to swap out the hubcaps for chrome rally wheels in an effort to make it look better while on the lot.
