Hello to all. I am new here and just wanted to introduce myself and my car. My name is Dave and I reside in the rust belt area of Wisconsin. I've had a ton of older Gm cars and never really hit upon one I like enough to keep. Which leads me to my newest and hopefully a keeper. When I was 15 my dad bought a pale yellow '77 skylark. He liked how it looked like a nova and stuck it off to the side. A little later when I dating my now wife, we needed a car and all that was around was the old buick. I ended up buying it from my dad and drove it around with the tired 3.8 for about a year. After it started knocking, i sold it back to him for a V8 transplant. Then I had to have it back. We dealt it back and forth for the next 4 or 5 years until it fell out of our little loop. I ran into a guy with a beautiful '78 skylark at the store one day while out driving mine. Mine was a bench seat column shift car with duals and deep dish mags. His was a cool silver bucket seat, console car with an awesome red cloth/vinyl interior. He had just had it painted and new white lettered tires put on. I never saw that car after that day but always hoped mine would be that cool. Fast forward 15 years and the old yellow buick was a memory me and my buddies talked about when we were drinking a few. I was driving out on a country road when I came across a silver what I thought was a nova from the road. Upon closer inspection it was the silver one from years before. Only it had seen a very rough few years. I talked to a younger woman who said it was her fathers car ans it had been sitting there for a long, long time. He had apparently ran into something back in the early 2000's and decided to quit driving. When asked if it might be for sale she said his mind was slipping and he wanted way to much for it. I inquired how much and she took me in to ask the old man. He said he'd take $600 for it and that it ran great. On the way out to look it over she told me it hadn't been touched in 5 or 6 years, and he was senile. I looked it over and decided to pass. I already had a '77 cutlass I was playing with. Six months later I had sold the cutlass and was looking for something new. I drove out past the buick and saw it was still sitting. I stopped and talked to the guy again. He didn't remember me, but said he'd take $600 for it. I told Him I'd think about it. I went back a little later and said for $500 I'd have it towed out. He agreed, on the stipulation that I bring it back so he could see it in it's prime again. When I got it home I dumped some gas down the carb and cranked it over and the big ol' 305 rumbled to life. That's where I'm at now. It had a really bad repaint in '96 and all the paint was peeling off, leaving bare metal behind. I hit with some spray on primer. I also threw some roller wheels on it to get it mobile after it's long hibernation. That was last spring. It's now sitting on 14" buick rallye it wheels and new white lettered tires. I replaced the damaged front end parts. I hope to get it painted it's original silver this year yet, but cash is a little tight. I've added a picture of what it looked like shortly after arriving home. I'll get some pics up of it's current state shortly. I pulled it out of storage today and haven't gotten it cleaned up yet.
Thanks, I haven't gotten much dome since my original post. I'm trying to get it back into daily driver condition for summer. I was really unhappy with how low the back sat. There was no obvious reason so just to get by I threw some air shocks on it. Now I'm second guessing my choice of tire size. After sitting the winter it developed a braking problem. The driver's side rear brakes locks up as soon as you touch the pedal. Everything looks good, and the drum slides right off. I'm going to try adjusting it in a little. I'll get some pics up as soon as it's cleaned up a little.
Well....today I was going to take it for a wash and it acted like it ran out of gas. since I put $40 of gas in before I left my block I knew that wasn't the problem. I ran home got mt truck and was going to push it the block back to the house. For some reason I had my wife drive the truck. She ended up slamming into the back of the buick going about 25 mph. It smashed the taillights, trunk lid, filler panels, bumper and bent the tail panel and quarter on the pass. side. It's not her fault, I should have known better. So now I gotta do some junkyard hunting for taillights. I believe that I'm going to put '77 tails in it because I like those better. Pics were supposed to be taken today, but obviously that didn't happen.
I'm positive someone here on the board can help you find what you need. don't worry here it won't cost you a arm and a leg like the junk yards.
Hi,What a nice Skylark...! Hope you find the taillights,i prefer 75-77 taillights too but they are really hard to find! it would be great that some one reproduced them but .... I was not at forum for more than 6 months ...! Hope every thing goes well with your project.......
Thanks. I have been working on getting the body done. I'm going to one the biggest car show/swap meets around here in about 10 minutes. I ended up putting the right tail lights in it. I will get some pics in it's current state here shortly I hope.
I knocked the draglites off it today and polished up the buick rallys. I decided I should take some pics, I keep saying I will but haven't yet. So here you guys go. Please be gentle guys, It's a work in progress.
I bent a push rod about a week ago. I figured while it's apart, might as well freshen it up a bit. A can of GM blue, a can of satin black and a few car show decals and it looks a hundred times better. I also have a edelbrock intake painted up to go on it, and a holley carb waiting to get rebuilt. My plan is to keep it fairly stock looking under the hood. No chrome, no aluminium or anything like that. I get a lot of flack from my buddies but it's ok. I also have a 67 Impala SS convertible that's getting a frame off, that's where I got the totally stock bug from.
I am very jealous of your front bucket seats. It looks like a good starting point! Also is that the 305 v8?
Thanks guys. The front buckets are nice to have. Once they get recovered I'll like them more. The back seat looks like it's never been used. I'm having some trouble finding the covers with the cloth and vinyl so I haven't done much on the interior. It is a factory chevy 305-2 barrel. I'm going to put a 4 barrel on here shortly. All my buddies are hounding me to put a 350 in it. One even offered to sell me a 454 for $300 just to get me to pull the 305 out. I kicked it around, but when I bought it was 100% stock down to the spiral shocks. I want to be able to put it back to original with minimal effort.
Today I took my dad to grab his laguna from storage. The old girl started ticking badly and running rough. I pulled the valve cover and the same pushrod I just replaced was bent again and the rocker was turned . Upon further inspection, the rocker arm stud had a decent groove cut about a third of the way through it. I got it out but I had to order a new one, it'll be here in the A.M. Hopefully I'll have this straightened out now. ray: Also one of the airshocks let go on me and now it sits all kinds of funny.
Air shocks will do that from time to time. Their great if you are pulling a trailer, but not so great if you aren't. I've used them on a few of my vehicles, and would again, if I was planning on pulling a trailer. It's nice being able to level out the load. Looks like you got a good solid project car at the minimum, and a nice driver!
Unfortunately, this is the end of the line. Unemployment running out and no jobs to be found mean things have to go. I already let my truck go and this is nest on the list. I really hate to do it. Hopefully it'll end up going to someone who can show it the TLC it needs. I guess I'm just going to enjoy it until it goes.
Been there and done that many times myself. Fighting the big "C" for 12 years will drive ya to the poorhouse. I wish you the best of luck!
