My 'New' 87 Regal Thread

[joesregalproject]

Well, here's the update on the motor. I was able to repair the timing cover the I gakked with the angle grinder when I had to cut one of the water pump bolts that had frozen itself in the block. I took it to work and drilled out the bolt stud that was rust-welded into the cover. It only took me about 2 minutes to drill through with the 3 phase drill press at work. I then used JB Weld to build up the gasket surface I destroyed with the angle grinder. I also used it to fill in 2 water pump bolt holes that had broken bolts in them that I had drilled out. It came out great and saved me $135 over buying a new one.

I also sandblasted and primed one of the valve covers. I plan on taking the intake manifold, the crank pulley, and the other valve cover to work soon to sandblast them as well.

Lastly, I removed the remains of the broken water pump bolt from the block and retapped the threads. Came out great!

Definitely small accomplishments, but bit by bit it'll get done!

 

[MrSony]

Cool beans man. Keep at it.

 

[307 Regal]

Joe I had a boo-boo over the summer. Just recently started messing with it.

It's all good though; I've already got a fender to replace it!

I had a wheel fall off. Luckily it was at low speed. Impact with the ground bent my window's scissor lift. :/

 

[joesregalproject]

Joe I had a boo-boo over the summer. Just recently started messing with it.
It's all good though; I've already got a fender to replace it!
I had a wheel fall off. Luckily it was at low speed. Impact with the ground bent my window's scissor lift. :/

Brian, ouch! Sorry to see that! Was the door skin or rocker panel touched? Do you have power or manual windows? If manual, I think I still have a set of regulators that I'd gladly give to you. At least it's an easy-to-replace panel. That's the most bodywork you've had to do to that car other than paint, correct? If I remember correctly, your car was pretty straight and solid to begin with (quite unlike my crusty, banged up car, lol).

 

[307 Regal]

Yea, it'll be my first bit of real body panel work! lol I have power windows. When warm weather rolls back around I'm going to see about getting the tracks out and straightening them. The only damage to the rest of the door is whatever I caused pulling the fender out from behind it just to get the thing open, and I broke the plastic lock knob with my butt doing the "Dukes of Hazard maneuver." lol In unrelated news, hitting the ground also knocked my stereo out of place and ruined my new CD (I bought a new Kenwood head unit and some speakers from Crutchfield ) but I just solved that issue a couple days ago so no worries.

Joe, I remember the first pics of your car like they were yesterday. I also remember it looking pretty good in primer. ha Hey, you never did any interior work, did you? You know that big dash inlay between our dash and our windshield? I need to repair mine but I'm not sure what to use. Any ideas? I was curious about experimenting with fiberglass...

 

[joesregalproject]

Yea, it'll be my first bit of real body panel work! lol I have power windows. When warm weather rolls back around I'm going to see about getting the tracks out and straightening them. The only damage to the rest of the door is whatever I caused pulling the fender out from behind it just to get the thing open, and I broke the plastic lock knob with my butt doing the "Dukes of Hazard maneuver."

Joe, I remember the first pics of your car like they were yesterday. I also remember it looking pretty good in primer. ha Hey, you never did any interior work, did you? You know that big dash inlay between our dash and our windshield? I need to repair mine but I'm not sure what to use. Any ideas? I was curious about experimenting with fiberglass...

Well that's a good thing that it was your first bit of bodywork! Believe me, it's time and labor intensive. Without help from my bodywork friends, I'd have never gotten my car looking like it does. I've avoided the Dukes of Hazzard window jump for that exact reason, and also due to the fact that I'm pretty clumsy to begin with, lol.

My car did look pretty good in its "Rattle Bomb Primer" phase. The primer hid a lot of sins.

I did a good bit of interior work, I just haven't posted any pictures. My car has the ugly limited plush interior, which I got rid of. I put Cutlass High Back bucket seats that I reupholstered in it, a new cut pile carpet, a T Type steering wheel, replaced most of the plastics, and put a new black headliner (guess where I got that idea 😀) in it. I still need door panels.

Also, that inlay is cracked to hell on mine too. I couldn't find a good one at a reasonable price, so I bought a color-matching carpeted dash cover that hides it all and looks pretty good, I think. It's a DashMat brand one, I think I got it from JC Whitney.

Pardon how dirty it is, it's been in storage for about a year-

 

[MrSony]

For those seats, did you used to have a bench seat up front? If so, since you have the buckets, what did you do about brackets on the passenger side? Is it a power seat? How did you do the seat tracks?

 

[joesregalproject]

Those are stock Cutlass manual bucket seats. I bought them with the tracks. I reupholstered them myself with lightly used OEM covers. My original seat was a power 60/40 split bench. If you have a solid bench, you'll need to weld the center brackets to the floor. If you have a 60/40, the brackets are already there.

My car was originally power window, power lock, power seats. I don't like working with 30 year old wiring, so I converted it to manual window, manual lock, manual seats.

 

[307 Regal]

I've never seen a black T-type wheel. I like it. It goes well with the burgundy; kinda gives a "black cherry" sort of aesthetic. Is your power-to-manual window swap in this thread? If so I should probably give it a look for research purposes.

 

[joesregalproject]

I've never seen a black T-type wheel. I like it. It goes well with the burgundy; kinda gives a "black cherry" sort of aesthetic. Is your power-to-manual window swap in this thread? If so I should probably give it a look for research purposes.

I like the black steering wheel too. It matches the black Headliner and the black trim on the dash well. I've never seen another black T-Type wheel, either. It may have come out of a Lesabre T-Type or something.

The manual window swap isn't in this thread, but I can get some pictures for you on it. It's as simple as removing the door panel, unbolting the window from the regulator, and drilling the rivets out, and riveting the new manual regulator in. The hardest part is aligning the windows to fit tightly against the seal on the car side. Even that isn't very difficult.