Been a while since I even signed on to gbf, so I figured I'd say hello again and give some updates and history on my Regal, also known to me and my friends as "Scar."
First off, I got the car when I was 17. I had started my love affair with Buicks and at the time I couldn't find one that I liked, and a friend at the time said "Hey, I know where a Regal is in Arkansas.. but there'll be conditions." So I got in touch with the owner, and the condition was that I couldn't strip the trunk. Odd condition, yes? Well.. this is why..
Call it insanity, call it a bit of my childhood memories flooding back (Was a big Lion King fan as a kid).. call it whatever you will, I was in love. Being young and going to tech school and such, I didn't have much money, so my mother, rest her soul, bought it for me. Within a month or two we got out there, bought it, only to realize the DMV was closed for the day. Given the previous owner had a new car with two plates, she said "Alright, use one of mine.." thankfully it was a vanity plate with her nick name on it which matched the url that's painted in the back window, so we drove for four hours with a plate that belonged to a Mazda 3 back to Tulsa with my new baby.
Me and a couple friends drove the thing for a few days, hitting up our usual hangouts in my "new" Regal. A good memory from those couple days was playing "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" on full blast at an intersection. Imagine the scene. Four, not very well-to-do kids in a Buick sedan smoking cigarettes.. I'll never, as long as I live, forget the look on another motorist's face when he rolled his window down to verify that.. yes.. four teenagers, who look like 'bad kids' were bumpin The Lion King soundtrack.
Well, as happens in life, situations changed, I never got my license, and it sat.. for seven years. I didn't do much with that time. Mainly partied away the years until I had to take a step back and re-evaluate. So I cleaned up, got a job, and was starting to put whatever small money I could into the car. Then a few months ago, I finally got some money, but at terrible cost. My mother passed away, and I was left with some life insurance money to start sorting things out.
I don't spill half my life story on a forum to get sympathy or anything like that, but to point out how, in moments of sorrow, and joy, cars elevate themselves. They become more than a hunk of metal sitting in your driveway. They become family. So it has been with my Regal, and I'm sure that's how it is for a few other members here on gbodyforum.
Anywho! On to the fun stuff. So, first step was to get an oil change, so I started the engine, let it warm up the many years old oil, and then drained it all out and replaced it with a healthy dose of Royal Purple and a new filter. A lot of the old shakes and shudders soon disappeared after a break in period, and it still didn't feel 'right' to me, so on down the list of things I'd already planned to do, I put in new plugs. Come to find out, the gaps were completely wrong for the engine.. 0.08 or 0.09. So I got the new plugs, gapped them by hand, and installed. Still not quite right. A week or two after that I tore down the distributor and replaced what needed replacing, which ended up meaning new ignition coil, coil strap, rotor, cap, and plug wires.
But then, tragedy! Worse than before! Now that engine was really angry with me! I spent the rest of the day going
Shaking like crazy on it's engine mounts, fuel spitting out the carb in epic backfires, and no amount of retard or advance fixed any of it. I knew we'd put the plug wires right where they're 'supposed' to go, and it still was being hateful. Well, I called it quits for the day and came back the next day, looked up the firing order, and rewired.
Success!... not. Got 'em all in the right order, and then it ran.. at like, 5 rpm. It sounded like an old Model T that was just croaking to life. So off the plug wires came again and I rotated each wire by one post, and then bam! I'd never, ever heard that engine sound so happy. Still a high idle, still some issues remain, but after some timing adjustments, it now starts on the first crank as long as it hasn't sat for a few days.
This is why I love this little 231 v6. Take a step back and realize this car drove all the way from Arkansas, seven years ago, and who knows how long before that on the wrong firing order. That right there is enough to make me very loyal to the little v6 that could.
Other things that have been done were correcting other mistakes that were made in 'repairs' over the course of the previous owner's period with the car. This lady loved hot glue.. so much so that the passenger lower door panel had been hot glued along the top to the upper door panel. That simply wouldn't do. Off came the door panels, and then the most difficult job I've done since owning the car.. removing the hot glue from the fabric. I didn't have any real tools to do the job with, so I used what I had. The heat of the Oklahoma sun, some rubbing alcohol to lessen the glue's grip, and a screwdriver.
Yeah the fabric got a bit frayed, but it wasn't perfect to begin with (top is sun bleached) so I'm quite happy with the results. Next up, I needed to sort out the passenger window regulator, and possibly, find a new door to replace it altogether, thanks to this.
So, I found a 78 Pontiac Grand Le Mans in a junkyard and got it's regulator to replace mine which had been used with vice grips for who knows how long. No picture of that, sorry. I also decided to grab the window glass even though I wasn't quite sure if the window frames were the same, since it's track wasn't made of rust like mine was.
Another part that came from that Le Mans were these two 'beauties' grabbed purely so I can do some speaker pod mockups on them without ruining my current door panels.
Pretty terrible panels, but they'll serve their purpose when I get around to that little project. But then, after spending all that time wrestling that regulator out of the door, I went to another yard to find this carcass. (Pic taken after I had stripped what I could)
I was overjoyed. I'd spent ages trying to find four door parts and here was an absolute treasure trove. I had pretty much given up on ever scoring power vents, and yet here was a car, mostly complete with exactly what I was looking for. No Buick specific things, of course, but plenty of pieces to sort through. Only trouble was, I had 3 days until it hit the crusher, and one of them was the day that I had no time to get what I needed. Two days of four plus hours in the hot Oklahoma sun got me two rear doors with power vents..
Two front doors with all controls intact. (Pic taken after they were shoehorned into an overpacked garage to keep them out of the rain)
And complete power window/lock harness and four sill plates
I really, really wish I'd had more time with that old Cutlass. So many pieces that guys here would've liked to have for a Cutlass restoration. I mean, look at that bumper and those tail lights! Even the majority of the fill panel was intact and near perfect. Trunk pan was as solid as the day she rolled off the showroom floor. Excellent C pillar badges.. Good windshield, good rear window and windshield trim.. just a lot of really, really nice parts. Really wish I'd had more time to gut that car..
Future plans are to build around the whole "Scar" theme.. I'd die to have a Grand National driveline out of a wrecked GN. I don't want one from a good GN, I want one from a dead one, to fit the theme of Scar killing his own brother to have his power.. ya know, that sorta stuff. Silly? Sure, but I promised to keep the theme when I bought the car, and I stick to my word, so I think having that driveline would fit the theme nicely.
Other than that, replace the windshield, get started on rust repairs, which are probably going to be extensive thanks to a leak in the windshield, a body mount rusted completely off the body, wheel wells, quarter panels, some rocker panel work.. get the tags caught up and fix the rest of the gremlins hiding in the electrical system, such as my dimmer switch dimming the parking lights... which come on with the ignition. That one's probably a crossed wire, but who knows?
Got a long road ahead of me with this sedan, but it's my baby. Would love to hear what you guys think of it, and if anybody has any good ideas for the theme, IE paint, Scar's location on the car, etc, give a shout! I seriously can't think of where I want to paint him after all the bodywork is done, so any ideas would be helpful.
Keep an eye on the El Camino forum for a post on my dad's 1979 GMC Caballero Diablo w/ factory 4 speed and 305, which needs a lot of work too, but has been in his possession since new. Can't wait to drive that one when it's fixed up!
Thanks for reading my excessively long post, and good luck with your G bodies everyone.
First off, I got the car when I was 17. I had started my love affair with Buicks and at the time I couldn't find one that I liked, and a friend at the time said "Hey, I know where a Regal is in Arkansas.. but there'll be conditions." So I got in touch with the owner, and the condition was that I couldn't strip the trunk. Odd condition, yes? Well.. this is why..
Call it insanity, call it a bit of my childhood memories flooding back (Was a big Lion King fan as a kid).. call it whatever you will, I was in love. Being young and going to tech school and such, I didn't have much money, so my mother, rest her soul, bought it for me. Within a month or two we got out there, bought it, only to realize the DMV was closed for the day. Given the previous owner had a new car with two plates, she said "Alright, use one of mine.." thankfully it was a vanity plate with her nick name on it which matched the url that's painted in the back window, so we drove for four hours with a plate that belonged to a Mazda 3 back to Tulsa with my new baby.
Me and a couple friends drove the thing for a few days, hitting up our usual hangouts in my "new" Regal. A good memory from those couple days was playing "I Just Can't Wait To Be King" on full blast at an intersection. Imagine the scene. Four, not very well-to-do kids in a Buick sedan smoking cigarettes.. I'll never, as long as I live, forget the look on another motorist's face when he rolled his window down to verify that.. yes.. four teenagers, who look like 'bad kids' were bumpin The Lion King soundtrack.
Well, as happens in life, situations changed, I never got my license, and it sat.. for seven years. I didn't do much with that time. Mainly partied away the years until I had to take a step back and re-evaluate. So I cleaned up, got a job, and was starting to put whatever small money I could into the car. Then a few months ago, I finally got some money, but at terrible cost. My mother passed away, and I was left with some life insurance money to start sorting things out.
I don't spill half my life story on a forum to get sympathy or anything like that, but to point out how, in moments of sorrow, and joy, cars elevate themselves. They become more than a hunk of metal sitting in your driveway. They become family. So it has been with my Regal, and I'm sure that's how it is for a few other members here on gbodyforum.
Anywho! On to the fun stuff. So, first step was to get an oil change, so I started the engine, let it warm up the many years old oil, and then drained it all out and replaced it with a healthy dose of Royal Purple and a new filter. A lot of the old shakes and shudders soon disappeared after a break in period, and it still didn't feel 'right' to me, so on down the list of things I'd already planned to do, I put in new plugs. Come to find out, the gaps were completely wrong for the engine.. 0.08 or 0.09. So I got the new plugs, gapped them by hand, and installed. Still not quite right. A week or two after that I tore down the distributor and replaced what needed replacing, which ended up meaning new ignition coil, coil strap, rotor, cap, and plug wires.
But then, tragedy! Worse than before! Now that engine was really angry with me! I spent the rest of the day going
Shaking like crazy on it's engine mounts, fuel spitting out the carb in epic backfires, and no amount of retard or advance fixed any of it. I knew we'd put the plug wires right where they're 'supposed' to go, and it still was being hateful. Well, I called it quits for the day and came back the next day, looked up the firing order, and rewired. Success!... not. Got 'em all in the right order, and then it ran.. at like, 5 rpm. It sounded like an old Model T that was just croaking to life. So off the plug wires came again and I rotated each wire by one post, and then bam! I'd never, ever heard that engine sound so happy. Still a high idle, still some issues remain, but after some timing adjustments, it now starts on the first crank as long as it hasn't sat for a few days.
This is why I love this little 231 v6. Take a step back and realize this car drove all the way from Arkansas, seven years ago, and who knows how long before that on the wrong firing order. That right there is enough to make me very loyal to the little v6 that could.
Other things that have been done were correcting other mistakes that were made in 'repairs' over the course of the previous owner's period with the car. This lady loved hot glue.. so much so that the passenger lower door panel had been hot glued along the top to the upper door panel. That simply wouldn't do. Off came the door panels, and then the most difficult job I've done since owning the car.. removing the hot glue from the fabric. I didn't have any real tools to do the job with, so I used what I had. The heat of the Oklahoma sun, some rubbing alcohol to lessen the glue's grip, and a screwdriver.
Yeah the fabric got a bit frayed, but it wasn't perfect to begin with (top is sun bleached) so I'm quite happy with the results. Next up, I needed to sort out the passenger window regulator, and possibly, find a new door to replace it altogether, thanks to this.
So, I found a 78 Pontiac Grand Le Mans in a junkyard and got it's regulator to replace mine which had been used with vice grips for who knows how long. No picture of that, sorry. I also decided to grab the window glass even though I wasn't quite sure if the window frames were the same, since it's track wasn't made of rust like mine was.
Another part that came from that Le Mans were these two 'beauties' grabbed purely so I can do some speaker pod mockups on them without ruining my current door panels.
Pretty terrible panels, but they'll serve their purpose when I get around to that little project. But then, after spending all that time wrestling that regulator out of the door, I went to another yard to find this carcass. (Pic taken after I had stripped what I could)
I was overjoyed. I'd spent ages trying to find four door parts and here was an absolute treasure trove. I had pretty much given up on ever scoring power vents, and yet here was a car, mostly complete with exactly what I was looking for. No Buick specific things, of course, but plenty of pieces to sort through. Only trouble was, I had 3 days until it hit the crusher, and one of them was the day that I had no time to get what I needed. Two days of four plus hours in the hot Oklahoma sun got me two rear doors with power vents..
Two front doors with all controls intact. (Pic taken after they were shoehorned into an overpacked garage to keep them out of the rain)
And complete power window/lock harness and four sill plates
I really, really wish I'd had more time with that old Cutlass. So many pieces that guys here would've liked to have for a Cutlass restoration. I mean, look at that bumper and those tail lights! Even the majority of the fill panel was intact and near perfect. Trunk pan was as solid as the day she rolled off the showroom floor. Excellent C pillar badges.. Good windshield, good rear window and windshield trim.. just a lot of really, really nice parts. Really wish I'd had more time to gut that car..
Future plans are to build around the whole "Scar" theme.. I'd die to have a Grand National driveline out of a wrecked GN. I don't want one from a good GN, I want one from a dead one, to fit the theme of Scar killing his own brother to have his power.. ya know, that sorta stuff. Silly? Sure, but I promised to keep the theme when I bought the car, and I stick to my word, so I think having that driveline would fit the theme nicely.
Other than that, replace the windshield, get started on rust repairs, which are probably going to be extensive thanks to a leak in the windshield, a body mount rusted completely off the body, wheel wells, quarter panels, some rocker panel work.. get the tags caught up and fix the rest of the gremlins hiding in the electrical system, such as my dimmer switch dimming the parking lights... which come on with the ignition. That one's probably a crossed wire, but who knows?
Got a long road ahead of me with this sedan, but it's my baby. Would love to hear what you guys think of it, and if anybody has any good ideas for the theme, IE paint, Scar's location on the car, etc, give a shout! I seriously can't think of where I want to paint him after all the bodywork is done, so any ideas would be helpful.
Keep an eye on the El Camino forum for a post on my dad's 1979 GMC Caballero Diablo w/ factory 4 speed and 305, which needs a lot of work too, but has been in his possession since new. Can't wait to drive that one when it's fixed up!
Thanks for reading my excessively long post, and good luck with your G bodies everyone.
A cat has scent marked both my rear door panels, and then, as I was working on that, I had the car doors open, as I usually do when working on it. I look over and see the same ****ing cat walking away, come to find out, the little **** pissed on the Cutlass door panel WHILE IT WAS ON THE CAR. 
