Projects Winter Project:1956 Buick Hardtop TONS OF PICS

I see what your sayin now BigRedTodd.

Malcolm see you at the roundup?

 

Looks good bro, glad to see you guys are getting some work done..Hope to see you soon....btw, you have hairy arms.

 

I like the progress. Hope to see you out this summer.

 

This is one cool project. I`ll be watching to see this finished.

 

At this point, I'm really not sure. Working on my house right now, to get it ready to sell and get moved into another place that I have lined up. Really hope to be all moved by the end of April, but it all depends on the sale of my current place.

You planning on driving the Buick down there?

 

Thanks Dustin. Actually when I get a haircut I save the scraps and glue them on my body to make me look more growed up.

I see. Good luck selling! Yeah the plan is to drive the buick down there.

Everyone else, thanks for the nice comments!

 

This is probably my favorite build thread on the HAMB right now, but I'm somewhat partial to Buick!

You guys have done really solid repairs and upgrades, I love to see that. When you drive it, please tell us how the Rivi stub works for you. I have a '57 Buick with a pretty shot front suspension and (of course) it's a one-year only thing that is massively expensive to replace, so I've been looking at some different options. Haven't thought if a 60's Rivi stub, tell us how ya like it.

Can't wait to see what you guys do with it, hope to see it at the Round Up!

 

Thanks! Strange Agent! Hope to see you in Austin. How come your selling your 57?

 

Well guys progress has been somewhat slow lately. We got our fresh heads back and I was getting ready to put them on and then I noticed this spot in one of the pistons. What do you guys think? Is it something to worrry about? Or should I go ahead and put the heads back on?

 

Anybody?

 

Maybe refresh us all on this engine. Ran when pulled? YOU heard it run? Got it from a "friend", who swears it ran great? What it is? Why are the heads off? Sorry, I did not go back and read the entire post again.

To me it looks like it's been there for a while, since it's sort of dark and carbony. It could have been a casting defect from the factory that was never caught and by the looks of it, hasn't caused much of an problem. If it were something that happened since you pulled the head off I would expect it to be more shiny. And things that fall down intakes or break off inside engines usually leave A LOT more damage than one little spot.... Where do the spark plugs sit in those heads? Maybe someone rammed in an incorrect plug, too long, and it dug into the piston? Just trying to give you a couple ideas.. I guess if the engine ran before I would run it. Good Luck!

 

Hey thanks for the reply Bryan. Yeah the motor ran when we pulled it out. We drove the car down the street a few times. We tried to listen to see if we heard any odd noises when it was running but we didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

I dont know any history on the engine. The people we bought the car from said they had the original engine replaced in the 80's or 90's. I dont think it has been rebuilt or anything.

There is not any scoring in the cylinders either. I havent checked but im pretty sure the spark plugs are closer to the center of the piston. We took the heads off to get a valve job done.

 

Actually, Our buick a '57 had a slight tick in the engine after we had done some minor work to it. After pulling it apart to find the noise a piece of the bottom of a carb stud had rusted so much it fell off and went down an intake runner. The piece had embedded itself into the piston and looked a lot like yours. It put a slight nick in the head, but nothign serious. You might check the heads, but if they get milled it will probably get cleaned up.

It that spot on your piston a hole? like it was a bad casting and had a pocket in there? If it has sharp edges I'd file it down a llittle and smooth it out, and use it.

 

Are you gonna make the roundup this year? I can't get enough of them Buicks.

 

Yeah, I was going to ask if the cylinders were at all scored but looks like you already thought of that.

Put it together and run it, any chance you can get a little dyno time before you put it all back in? If it does end up being an issue it would be a lot easier to repair after a dyno pull than having to r&r the engine.

Oh, and you will be ULTRA SUPER MEGA SENSITIVE PARANOID anytime this thing ticks or clicks or makes some strange popping noises. And you'll think, "Dang maybe today is the day that piston lets go." At least I would be!

 

Well done !!

 

Well its been a few months since my last update. I have been working on the Buick off and on and My dad has been slowly but surely working on it all the while. We have been spending a lot of time on our business but this car will be out SOMETIME this summer come Hell or high water! Check it out....

When my dad was measuring different cars to find a subframe he decided the 65 rivi subframe would be great because of the very close width measurments and that the steering box would line up pretty close. Well it lined up a lot better than "pretty close" it is nearly perfectly in line with the steering column.




As you can see the frames where welded together all the way around the meeting point.




After they where welded together like that we plated all 4 side of the frames with 3/16 steel. These plates go from under the floor pans all the up to the front suspension.












The frame was way to high in front for where the fender and core support mounts go so rather than moving the body/core mounts, we cut the frame accordingly and plated it like we plated the back side of the sub frame.






You can probably see where we had to make some exhaust tubing as a tunnel so the frame would clear the strut bars.





Thats all for tonight. Should have another update fairly soon!

 

to the top

 

Man, that's a beautiful frame graft!

 

Looking great man, hope to see that around sometime soon!

 

let's go, it's almost summer!

 

Damm Nick...that thing is looking sweet....can't wait to see the final product!!

 

Keep up the great work Nick. I am looking forward to this reaching completion.

 

Looking good. Where did you get those disc brake brackets?

 

Thanks for the kind words everyone!

From the one and only Scarebird Classic Brakes! He has all kinds of kits to convert drum brakes to disc. One hell of a guy and great products! Become a HAMB alliance member and get 10% off!

 

cant wait to see it bagged!

 

Cool build to watch! Good to see you and your pops doing it together, that will make the car just that much more important.

 

Hurry up...get that thing done.
DD

 

Where tryin John! Hopefully we will get a lot done this weekend.

Also, your ASRA link doesnt work. Its spelled wrong. haha

 

We just picked up our '56 about a month ago. We don't plan any major projects like you're doing, but if we ever get the bug I'll have one heck of a guide to follow. Thanks for sharing this with us.