This site is about my two 1970 Buick LeSabres. Gold Car

     One has been in my family since new and the other is a driver. Both need lots of help. I had originally focused on the driver one (pictured above), but from now on I'll probably just post general stuff about both cars. At any rate, the two door is actually a mixture of two cars. I had a 4 door brown 70 LeSabre that was in really bad shape, but looked good. Brown matches rust after all. The problem was that the frame dissolved due to Chicago salt. I could rant more, but that's why I wrote an intro.   If you’ve checked the intro before, I’ve updated it as of 11/30/08, so there’s a bit more there. If there’s something you’re curious about (whether you see it on this site or not) just email me, because I haven’t been able to put everything up here yet.

Updates:

July 3, 2009

          I just picked up the gold car from Wisconsin today. I drove the 2 door up there yesterday with my wife, her sister, and her sister’s husband and dropped it off to get painted. We stayed the night up in WI and then came back down today. Everything went off without any problem. It’s amazing how reliable these cars are, as I’m used to the finicky VWs, I expected to break down several times, but thankfully nothing happened. The gold car drives nicely, although I need to find a new center link since that one has some play in it. It also pulls when braking, but that’s easily fixed. I miss these cars since my daily driver is now a Daewoo…

          With grad school and living in CA, I have no time nor place to put these cars, which is why I’m just having them painted. I’d love to take them out to CA, but there’s no way I could put them on the street. And the paint is so damn nice on the gold car, I’m even afraid to put it in my mom’s garage. I just need to get a new vinyl top put on and the exterior is done. Unfortunately, the gold car was the family car for 30+ years and the interior is pretty bad, but you know, baby steps.

          This trip was a good test of both cars. The electric fan in the 2 door worked flawlessly, as did the aluminum radiator and dual electric fans in the 4 door. I was somewhat worried if the fans would work on a hot day under load, but I had no problems at all. Well, there was one problem with the gold car; if I accelerate fast, it gets fuel starved and stalls!

For pics, see my flickr page.

November 30, 2008
      A lot has happened since I've updated the page last. Sorry for those of you who come to check only to find an outdated page. Since the last update, my wife and I have both been accepted to the mechanical engineering PhD program at the University of California at Berkeley, and have moved from the Chicago area to Oakland (it's cheaper than Berkeley to live). That was a large ordeal, and both Buicks stayed in Chicago because I didn't know if I'd have room for them out here. I don't. The apartment we're renting has a garage (that the VW camper bus we have doesn't fit into) but it's barely large enough for the hatchback we have. So I think the Buicks will stay in Chicago for the time being....which really sucks, but I guess that's just how it has to be for now.

      The 4 door car has been up in Green Bay, Wisconsin since March. I found the guy who's painting it through the v8buick.com site and he seems to be a really cool guy. Plus he has Buicks and is doing it for cheap, so how can you go wrong? He's said that the car will be done by xmas, so I hope to pick it up when I'm back in Chicago for the xmas vacation...we'll see. If I do get it, I'll throw pics up of before and after so you can see the difference.

January 15, 2008
      Well, this last year has been the year of the VW basically. That said, I'm anxious now to finally finish up the gold 4 door car. I plan to get it all ready for paint and have it painted by the end of this semester. I pulled the engine harness out of it to remake it. It was a horrible hack job from years of mechanics just kinda fixing things instead of doing it correctly. It made me want to just rewire the whole car with a Painless system. But I stopped myself because it's already stalled several times because of thoughts like that.

      I spent the past semester designing a Baja car for the SAE competition so am now very well versed in suspension design. This doesn't necessarily mean I'll be redesigning the suspension right now, but just learning how was the biggest road block. I plan to measure the frame mounting points, width, etc and slowly begin designing a new frame in Solidworks or Pro/E. I'm also thinking of using Corvette spindles/brakes and making my own control arms. This is just a thought and I really can't determine what I want yet until I actually see what I have to work with concerning space for the suspension up front. For the rear, I've pretty much decided on a three link.

      Well, regardless of what happens this coming semester, it's guarranteed to be busy. It's my last as an undergrad, and I've applied to a multitude of grad schools. The Baja I designed last semester gets built this semester. The bus needs a bit of work still, but that's understandable after it's 10,000+ miles last summer. I think I'll finish up repairing the inner fender and core support rust while it's cold out since I can do that inside. Sorry for not updating this more often for those who might read this occasionally. This semester should be productive, so we'll see how it turns out.

January 19, 2007
      So I’ve done a few small things to the car since the last post here. I had the front and rear bumper brackets powder coated and cleaned up the bumpers a bit. I also ordered a book on working with fiberglass. I’ve been reading online about it a bit, but a book just seems to be a more stable source. I plan to make a mould of the LeSabre’s hood and then pop out a couple fiberglass hoods. I think I may start first with the splash pan under the rear bumper first, as it’s smaller and easier to work with.

      I took a road trip in mid December to Daytona Beach stopping to climb in the Red River Gorge for a few days on the way down. The weather was ideal and beautiful both in Kentucky and Florida. And the VW performed nicely, only needing minimal maintenance in Florida that still took a hell of a long time for being minimal. You’d think replacing the power wire from the alternator to the battery would be easy, but not when you’re dealing with the famed German engineering. Since I’m talking about the VW, I’ll mention a little of what’s been done to it. It has a nice sound system now with the Buick’s old head unit and a four channel amp. I made a fiberglass speaker enclosure that mounts next to the rear hatch in an elevated position as to not interfere with sleeping on the fold down bed. Opposite this in the cabinet I just made an enclosure out of MDF board to mount the other rear speaker (6.5 inch Blaupunkts.) We redid the door panels on all doors and I put Infinity 6x9’s in the front doors, which sound great. I’m planning on making a new mount for a GM type alternator so I can put a 140A alternator in it. The 55A one in there now doesn’t cut it. I replaced a few minor parts that were missing as well as fuel tubing. It has a second battery now and a 2500W power inverter is in the plans, hence needing the higher output alternator. I also have to fill the propane tank on it and make a stove that’ll work on it. I’ll post pics of it later so this all makes sense.

      I guess it would be a good idea to make an offshoot for the VW since I’m now dividing up my time between three vehicles…and school, and work, and of course time with Jenn. I did organize my basement over my winter break, so it’s all now nice and neat. I also got a large Craftsman roll-away tool box as well as a peg board so my tools are finally more organized. It’s nice and I’m really happy with it. Well, that’s all for now. I can’t wait for warmer weather so I can start doing stuff outside again!

November 22, 2006
      I’ve gotten a few requests for radios, and I do have extra ones. However, I don’t really have time at the moment due to school to find them. In a few weeks I’m done with this semester, so I’ll dig them out sometime after that and let you guys who asked me know about them.

      In other news, I picked up a steering box from an 87 GN. The LeSabre has a 19:1ish ratio box in it now, and this GN one has a 12.7:1 ratio, so it’ll be nice once it’s in. The convenient thing is that GM used Saginaw boxes for 30 years in their cars, and the cases are all the same. Jeep also used them in the Cherokees from I think 90-96. So as long as you know the ratio that you’re after, you can swap in a quicker box pretty easily. They did change some stuff though. Boxes from the 80s and on have metric piping fittings, and the input shaft is of a different diameter, but that just means you need to change some parts.

      The swap is really well documented for A bodies, but not at all for the B body cars (LeSabre, Electra, etc.) There’s not so much of a difference, it’s just that A bodies are front steering cars, and B bodies are rear steering cars. This means the steering linkage on A bodies connects forward of the front wheels and the linkage connects to the rear of the front wheels in the B bodies. What this ends up meaning for the swap is that the power steering lines used for the A body swap (like a mid 80s Regal’s p/s lines) won’t work since the box is in a different place. However, the rag joint from an 80s GM truck will still work, since this isn’t affected. Anyhow, I’ll post this in the mechanical section once I actually do the swap and figure out what exactly is needed to do it. I’ll also throw up a list of cars you can pull boxes out of and their ratios.

September 13, 2006
      Well, nothing much is new, but I thought I should update. We went to pick up the camper in Montana (near the Canada/Idaho border) and drove it back without an issue. But once it got into the driveway, the starter shat out on us; no matter as it made it home. And the starter is replaced now anyway. It’s a really cool VW, and in a way was a bad idea…now I have a third project! But it’s technically Jenn’s vehicle, even though she asks for help with everything.

      I still have yet to figure the sway bar thing out. I talked to them at PST, but I still have to call them back. I have lots to do with school and work now, so less time for car. Plus the weather has been exceedingly crappy. I did however start the repair work on the extra passenger side inner fender, as well as the p/s quarter panel (which I can only work on when it’s not raining…so about 2 hours so far) so it’s not like I’ve been doing nothing. I’m still in the process of locating a quick ratio box for a decent price, and one that has a good degree of travel (not a f-body box.) So I leave you with that!

August 22, 2006
      Today I took the rear sway bar I was planning to put on the gold car and tried to put it on the 2 door. At first it looked like an easy install; the holes in the rear LCA’s were already there, so no drilling. Well, upon trying to install the bar, I found out that it’s about 1” short on each side. So I emailed PST, where I got the bars from, and now I await their response. I’m thinking that now would be a good time to get those spherical bearing LCA’s that I’ve been eyeing for a while. They’re a bit pricey at $320 for just the LCA’s (and not UCA’s) but I think they’re worth it. LCA is lower control arm…UCA is upper control arm; thought maybe I should clear that up.

AND NOW SOME BOMB-ASS NEWS!!!!
     We just won our Junk2Funk!!!!!! Go check out this ebay link. The problems with it are relatively minor (at least when compared with my freaking cars!) and it is instrumental in our plan to go to Alaska next summer.

August 8, 2006
      I just returned today from the Europe and Russia trip. I guess I should call it Europe and Asia trip, but that's ok. The car cover I put on the 2 door disintegrated whilst I was away and my mom attempted to fix it with duck tape. When that failed, she put anoter tarp over the front of the car. I had put a tarp over the rear half and had had no problems since air could flow freely under it. Well, the one she put on top blocked this airflow so no the hood has some nice water damage going on. It doesn't mater as the car needs pain anyhow, but it does make it look even worse!

     Riding the trans Siberian train, there was much time for me to daydream about many things, but I chose to ignore this option and think of what I need to do to these two cars of mine. No seriously, I made a long elaborate list and everything. And today I put the first dent into this list-to-end-all-lists. Step one was to hook up the alternator to the starter, and this is complete. I plan to move the battery to the trunk, so that's why it's hooked to the starter and not battery. But now the list has regained another to-do. It seems the State of IL has decided to suspend my plates until I take the car for emissions. This is gay for the reason that I sent in the proper form saying that the car was non-operation and that it will be operational in August. Apparently they didn't like that and couldn't wait for August so they decided to suspend the plates sometime in June. I hate the way the government works. So now I have to call these tools and yell at them. They want me to pay $12 for a permit to take the car to have the emissions done. Gay, really gay.

     In other news, I may be getting ralleyes for the gold car. That'd be the hot poop, and would bring the grand total of wheels for that car to 14. I had the original 5 wheels, then got 4 more for it when I replace the wheels on the former brown car (now the 2 door) with ralleyes and then another 5 ralleyes if I get them. That's a lot of tires to burn up! I need a posi on that car cos the lame 1 wheel spinning is just gay. Well, whatever the turnout of that, I'll leave updates and random posts about stuff as I progress along.

June 14, 2006
     Ok, just a quick update about the trip. I'm writing this from Helsinki...nice city btw. I leave in about an hour for Roveniemi (which I probably spelled wrong) and then catch a bus tomorrow in the morning for Tromso, Norway. So far, we've went to Sardina (which is beautiful), England, Stockholm, and the Åland Islands...which are part of Finland. After Tromso, we're going to hike in Lapland for two weeks on the Nordklotten trail, or something like that. I'm really bad with these names.

      Sardinia was a beautiful island. They have some crazy climbing there and Jenn and I plan to go back there in a few years on a straight climbing trip. Oh, I almost forgot! These nordic countrys have a crazy amount of old American cars! I've only seen one old Buick (mid 50's) but there are a lot of old cars here. Surprising considering a litre of gas is about 1.30 Euro. Alright, I'm out of time, thanks for reading!

May 14, 2006
      Today I leave for Europe/Russia, so if you decide to email me or sign the guestbook, it's not like I'm not answering cos I'm a jerk; I'm just out of the country! If anyone cares to keep up with what I'm doing there, there's a link in the links section (Jenn's site) to the site where we'll be updating stuff periodically depending on where we are.

April 27, 2006
     So I finally finished up the drivers quarter panel. That took forever, and it's still not as straight as I'd like it to be. But at least it's driveable. Which brings up the next issue. I drover it around yesterday. Took it to my make up drill, to the store, some other arons, you know just used it. So that electric fan draws some current! With the radio on, and the fan pulling, my voltage will drop below 12V! That really sucks. If I turn up the radio a bit, it'll drop to 9V.
     I figure the fan draws 25A-30A, the sub pulls at least 25A, and the two 6x9's get another 4A-5A, and I believe the stock alternator puts out only 60A. Needless to say, the car won't start at this point, even with it's new Optima battery. It'll crank a little, but not enough to fire before it gives up.
     Another thing I found out that I'll need to fix: When the engine has just been on and is warmed up past 185F, meaning the fan is on, the battery has to work really hard to crank both the fan and the starter. I'll have to rewire it so it's off until the car is started. I toyed with the idea of playing with some IC's and whipping up a little circuit...could probably do it with only a couple NAND gates, but I think I'll just go with an old fashoned switch since there's more important things to be done, like paint. Till next time, thanks for reading!

April 2, 2006
     This is less of an update and more of a small rant. I went to the junkyard the other day in hopes of finding a close ratio box from a Monte Carlo SS or a retired cop car or a host of other cars with a Saginaw 700 box in them. But no, not for me. I went to four different yards, and nothing. There were some old taxi's there, but I don't know if they had a 12.7:1 box in them or not. I'm not sure if the taxi's are the same as cop cars...I should probably find out. Anyhow, it still annoyed me when I asked about the lack of old iron. I was told the price of scrap went up a lot and that everyone got rid of the old stuff. Just pissed me off really bad. Oh, and don't buy Cavaliers or Neons...there are about a million of them in the yards!

March 20, 2006
     A few days ago I got a Grant steering wheel and install kit from Summit, along with a electric fan install kit. I suppose I should also mention I got an electric fan too, from one of the v8buick members. It's out of 99 - 04 Volvo s80's, 01 - 04 s60's and v70's. So today I put in the fan and the steering wheel. I must say, I’m very happy with the fan so far, although all the car has done is idle, but it seems to work very well. It was a relatively straightforward install, and is a much cheaper alternative to the pair of Derale fans that I got for the gold car about 1.5 years ago. Those fans are very good too, but it’s a $200 vs. $50 type of thing.
     The steering wheel is something I’ve been looking at getting for a while too. I’m still planning on a quick ratio swap, and the thin-gripped stock wheel just isn’t any good when you need to grab it tightly. I didn’t get the horn emblem yet; Summit apparently doesn’t have it in stock, but that’s ok. Not like I’m using the car right now anyway.
     So today is actually my birthday and it’s off to Quebec City to stay in the Ice Hotel for one night, and the YWCA the other 3. Jenn and I are going skiing for our spring break, so that should be a lot of fun. Next weekend my cousin and I will be going to the junkyard get some parts, and I’ll hopefully return with a quick ratio box.
     I’ve yet to do much with the bodywork, but I will once it gets warmer I’ll be starting up again.

March 4, 2006
     I've finally started working on the car again after the winter break. Over the winter I put in a shift kit and fixd some minor electrical problems that'd been having with the car. I actually did that today, and I somehow managed to fry out the voltage gage. It came in a set of three gauges from Autozone, so it's not a big loss, but kinda annoying.
     I did a bit of sanding on the drivers quarter today; still a lot to do. In my inexperience with welding, I managed to warp the quarter a bit when I fixed it. Instead of trying to shrink the metal back into shap, I just decided to use body filler since it expanded inward. It wasn't a huge dent, but I kinda regret not trying to shrink the metal before I filled it. Oh well, live and learn. I think it would have been better if I had started on an easier part of the car, instead of the largest job first. At least when I'm done with this quarter though, I'll know that the worst is over.
     I do have headers for the car that I'm hoping to install at some point, although I'd like to do something else first. After driving a small car all winter because this one was immoble, I really got used to the tighter sttering. I did some reaserch and found that I can pull a close ratio box off of a great many cars and it will work for mine. Apparently, Saginaw steering boxes were and are something of a standard, so a great many vehicles came with them. The nice thing is, this is actually a part that is shared by my car with its smaller brother, the Skylark. Anyhow, if anyone else is interested in doing this conversion, I got the info from this chevelle site. Good stuff. Maybe I'll even go the junk yard tomorrow to start collecting the parts I need.

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