Building a 1964 Buick Special
- Thread starter Tim_D
- Start date
Tim_D
Active Member
Still waiting to see if several pages of vehicle updates will be recovered. In the interim, I made a couple of upgrades over the winter.
First, I added a floor shifter. Although I like the stock column shifter, it wouldn't engage any gear past "drive". I have a couple extra gears than that, having added the TH2004R. Plus, if I ever wanted to dyno this thing, I needed to be able to shift (and hold) low gear. The shifter is a Summit unit that looks a lot like a Lokar, but with a less elegant park lock gate. The boot is a Lokar unit that I dyed to match the door cards.
I also bit the bullet and paid for a good rebuild of the transmission. It's a Stage 1 unit from Janis Transmissions. After test driving this weekend, the trans rebuild is the best thing done so far. I hadn't realized how soft the shifts were - particularly the 2-3 shift.
Finally, I got around to restoring the underside of the hood. While the engine looked great in the bay, the hood and hinges/springs were eyesores. The paint is the correct code, and you can see how faded the 58 year old original paint is.
I hope to get this into a local guy (Aggressive Performance) for some tuning in late spring.
First, I added a floor shifter. Although I like the stock column shifter, it wouldn't engage any gear past "drive". I have a couple extra gears than that, having added the TH2004R. Plus, if I ever wanted to dyno this thing, I needed to be able to shift (and hold) low gear. The shifter is a Summit unit that looks a lot like a Lokar, but with a less elegant park lock gate. The boot is a Lokar unit that I dyed to match the door cards.
I also bit the bullet and paid for a good rebuild of the transmission. It's a Stage 1 unit from Janis Transmissions. After test driving this weekend, the trans rebuild is the best thing done so far. I hadn't realized how soft the shifts were - particularly the 2-3 shift.
Finally, I got around to restoring the underside of the hood. While the engine looked great in the bay, the hood and hinges/springs were eyesores. The paint is the correct code, and you can see how faded the 58 year old original paint is.
I hope to get this into a local guy (Aggressive Performance) for some tuning in late spring.
Tim_D
Active Member
Yeah, sucks that the site lost the pics. Fortunately I did not. They are on a Photobucket site. The link is below -
Tim_D
Active Member
At this point, I've got the car mostly done to the level that I want it. Unless I decide to do the body restoration at some point... Which is kinda a long shot. That's a year and a half commitment that I'm not willing to make right now.
However, I will still do some small tweaks here and there. Such as, I added a line lock over the past couple of weeks. Gotta be able to heat those tires in the event I ever want to go racing!
However, I will still do some small tweaks here and there. Such as, I added a line lock over the past couple of weeks. Gotta be able to heat those tires in the event I ever want to go racing!
