Tonight was front spoiler night. The front spoiler had a bunch of hardware store bolts holding it on. And you know how much I despise thst stuff! I got the spoiler mounted. Real pain. I had to remove the radiator top plate, fan, fan shroud and use a couple of 2x4s to raise the radiator enough to get my hand in there to start the bolts. I got a front brace from Todd which was too long for whatever reason. After 2 hours I got the spoiler back on. It's beat to crap and kinda warped but it's on
Hi Jason I am intrigued about the correct way to install the baffle, as I have not yet put mine on, because I am not sure how it mounts. You have it sitting below the bumper. Is this correct? I had always assumed it sat inside on the lip of the bumper. Cheers Randy
I also thought they mounted on the top side of the bumper like these photos. Certainly would prevent air from trying to pull the baffle down. Regardless of how Buick intended them to be installed, I bet they were installed at the dealer both ways depending on who performed the work. This example has the wrong clips and I think are the ‘71-‘72 style.
I went and had Eric Stoldt let me take pics of his unmolested, original paint GSX and the baffle is mounted under the bumper too.
Thanks Jason I am putting my car away for the winter today, but I now have a clear understanding of how it should be mounted, come the spring. Cheers
The only thing I really dont like is where the spoiler mounts to the fenders. Everything is tight but being plastic, the spoiler flexes a little at the ends where it mounts to the fenders. Seems like it would fatigue the metal over time Another small issue was that I had to loosen up the lower fender braces and move the bottoms inboard. The passenger side not so much but the drivers side more. So much more that the fender brace won't line up with the hole in the core support. I really dont know....im thinking the simple solution is to remove the bolts at the very ends and reinstall the drivers fender brace. Spoiler isn't going anywhere and it will alleviate 2 problems
On my original 70 GSX, and on several other original cars that I have looked at, the holes for the spoiler ends were drilled into the bottom of the fenders near the fender brace bolt holes. I also think it shows to do that on the dealership instruction sheets. Maybe someone can post up the 1970 (“71-72” are different) spoiler installation sheets. Duane
At one point, I had a reproduction spoiler and baffle on my car. Here are some pictures I took at the time. These are like 15 years old.
Jason, are there additional holes drilled in the fenders where the fender braces are? Or are you trying to use the same holes that the braces are mounted? It could be the braces are in the wrong holes. I think that front clip has been off before.
Im using the holes in the ends of the fenders. The fender braces use holes about 3 inches forward just like Larry's pic
My friend Jay G. now has the '70 GSX that his dad bought new and the spoiler baffle is on top of the front bumper. It's by far the nicest unrestored GSX I've ever seen and its condition is amazing. I truly believe that the spoiler baffles were installed both ways, above or below, since this was an operation performed at the dealership. For your car I would definitely install the missing bolts so that the baffle doesn't blow loose on your high-speed run Friday night going over to Ballmore to meet up with Larry. I hope you enjoy the ride in your GSX. It's nice to see a car sold to a Buick guy that will enjoy it rather than getting tucked away into a private collection and never seen again.
As was said, since this was a dealer installed item, the baffle on any particular car was installed with a much care as the guy doing it that day had in him.. Which might have not been much... I looked at that a long time when I did my first GSX resto 25 years ago.. and I could not come up with any logical reason that the baffle would be installed below the bumper.. there is no way to keep the center of it from becoming an air scoop at hiway speeds, the way it is mounted above. Them two little clips are not going to survive for long.. later that year, I looked at a number of restored and survivor GSX's at the nationals.. and came up with no difinitive answer. They were on both ways.. so I say it's operators choice here.. I like the baffle up inside the bumper, I think it looks better, and I believe that is how the engineers designed it to be fit. JW
From the looks of the condition of both sides of the baffle and the clips which look like they've never been off, I would say it's likely it was installed originally below the bumper. But I do think it was intended to be installed above. I'm not changing it now! You know what a pain the ass it was to install it? Lol
All true Jim, because the dealer was to suppose to install the the front spoiler, variations from car to car will exist. My original paint untouched original 1970 GSX never had the front spoiler ever installed. No holes in outer fender or lower rad support.
Today I finally changed the oil and swapped out the 195 Stat for a 180. Running alot cooler. Was running around 210. Now it's running around 190 508 made its debut at the local car meet this afternoon
How can poor installation instruction and a corresponding failure on the part of 1970 Buick technicians over-ride the obvious? The baffle never would have been designed to be below the bumper.
I actually stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up some stuff fir dinner so it was left in the lot. My phone was dead so no pic. But on the way out walking back to it, I said to myself- "there's something you don't see everyday!"
People are such a-holes these days I'm not sure I could leave a car in a lot like that (@Brett Slater does it too). Not that I have to worry about it (yet). Other than a paid event, after reading the stories about a-holes @ car shows I'm not even keen on those. Even both my DD's, as many of you have seen, are junk and I'm perfectly fine w/that. I love when a guy in a nice car wants to cut me off - I'm like seriously dude? Go for it. Anyway, congrats Jason & glad to see you're back! Could do an M&M parody but most probably wouldn't get it, lol.
