Building a 1964 Buick Special

Tim_D

Active Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2017
What happened?!?

I lost several pages of updates from 2020 and 2021. The new rear axle, front mount intercooler, methanol injection, coil over upgrades... ALL GONE!
 
The site went down and they lost a lot of pictures. If you want repost some of them. People would like to see them I'm sure.
 
They're supposedly working on recovering all the old posts and pictures though. I've been refraining from updates until I see that happen.
 
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.

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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.

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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.

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I hope to get this into a local guy (Aggressive Performance) for some tuning in late spring.
 
I truly enjoy watching you work on this car. It's a car anyone would have in his or her garage.
Thanks for all the Pic ,its sad we lost so many of your build but I have most burned in my memory.
 
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!

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That is perfection. You should be very happy with that project. Thanks for sharing
 
How much crossmember modification was needed to clear the oil pan?
quite a bit actually, in the areas of the rear of the crossmember, outboard of the pan. I cut/shaped/welded these areas and the engine went in/out several times before I got the desired clearance.
 
hello people: If it's the car I'm thinking about there small in size and that 3.8 fits's like it lived there. S/B fun. Keep posting
IBBY
 
quite a bit actually, in the areas of the rear of the crossmember, outboard of the pan. I cut/shaped/welded these areas and the engine went in/out several times before I got the desired clearance.
Tim, I remember seeing your car on the 64-67 Facebook page Im admin on. Love the car and the color.
 
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