That is a used gray plastic grill I had in the parts dept. The factory gray one that came out was identical
I know they changed the design sometime in the 70 model year but never looked at when the change took place. The early grills had the top edge beveled and had no triangular gusset in the center. That made them fragile, so they revised it with the extra gusset to stiffen it up. When was your car built? (Body date on the firewall ID tag)? Duane
Took the X to the local Buick club meeting and it poured on the way there. Let's just say the underside got a good washing! The car is absolutely filthy now....black spray all down the sides... Two projects got generated from the trip- 1- the washer pump works when I put the wipers on. Doesn't stop.. I guess the solenoid is stuck 2- bad snapping noise came from the front end on braking. Only once. I suspect it's the upper control arm bushings.
Fun with washer pumps... I had replaced the washer pump on the car a while back. The old one had a thick coat of silver paint and the plastic was pretty deteriorated. So I bought a chinesium replacement to make things a little easier. Never tested it. It's new right? So last night the skies open up and turned the wipers on. Like a rectal orifice, I say, "hey, let's see if that washer pump works. Works alright. .. won't stop working. Stays on with the wipers now. Plus it sounds like bloody hell. Heavy knocking sound. I wound up taking an original I had in stock and taking both apart, reusing the plastic parts off the replacement on the original. The knocking noise was because the replacement pump uses a huge spring in it. The knocking noise is the recoil of the spring! The original spring is way softer and alot shorter. Put it all back together and it smooooth. Quiet as can be too. Big difference between how smooth and quiet the original vs the new one..What a fiasco though. At least it looks the part again. The new one looked out of place! Lol
Onto the upper control arm bushings! I only had 2 hours today so tackled the easy side. Thats the passenger side for anyone that hasnt done it yet. AC makes it just slighly harder thsn a non AC car. Other side will have to wait till during the week. I suspect my engine crane will come into use... They were definitely toast. Not sure this side was the noise I heard though. Cleaned everything up with mineral spirits and slammed the new bushings in Both knurled bolts had factory shims on them. Makes me wonder if this car has ever been aligned?
My Dad did front end work every day for over 30 years. I never appreciated it until I tried doing it myself. Good work, Jason.
Huh... I started on it 2 days ago. LOL Got the left control arm off and got rained out. Just changed out the shaft and bushing and was putting the control arm back on and my lady showed up with dinner. Gonna get the control arm bolted down and move on to the other side before the night is over!
To ALL. I don't even remove the control arms or shims to replace the bushings. I use an air hammer with a big ground punch end & vibrate them out/in. Takes minutes per bushing. Learn how to do it & save yourself hours/days of labor. Same goes for lower bushings & most rear end bushings. Tom T.
I can see how that could be done. I looked at my car and thought about what Tom said. I don't think there is any way that I could get an air hammer in there with the AC compressor and AC box in the car, to do the uppers...
I've seen guys take the bolts out of the lower control arms, then lower the arms down with a screw jack.
