Waiting christmas :)

Hello,

It's been a long time, because we had bathroom renovation, and lot other things to do before santa comes. 🎅

But we've done something little here. I made some silicone moulds of steerig wheels center piece, and next thing is mould new piece of clear epoxy resin. We've planned to write more of that when it is finished.

And today I removed rear doors, and bolts, that attach body to frame. Next operation in garage is lifting body up and separate it from frame, but that happens after christmas.

I've also removed a windshield wipers and some other small parts.


Happy holidays, everyone! :)

Old steering wheels center piece

Making mould

Pattern

Ready silicone mould

Bolts that attach body to frame

Gas tank

Light switch

Ahoy!

I looked up new light switches, but couldn't find any, which has reasonable price, quality or shipping costs. New universal switches, that has same functionality and size, seems little poor in quality, so we decided to fix old one.
It works alright, but panel lights dimmer didn't work way, it should be.
So I looked, what was inside of it and cleaned it up a bit.
Main switch side was in pretty good shape, only little dirt and oxidation on contacts. I soaked metal parts in phosphoric acid to remove rust and other parts soaked in citric acid to remove oxidation and dirt. Then I explored dimmer parts. With multimeter I found, that resistance wire was broken from four points. Around that wire, it looks like there has been some heat sometime. I'm glad that car hasn't been burnt. There was also marks of heat in high beam contact, so we're gonna put relays for all lights.
At first I planned to just solder resistance wires together, where it were broken, but I noticed, that solder didn't stick to resistance wire, even with flux. So I just threaded a piece of wire between wires, so there's good contact. That's not very good fix, but it works. 😅 We need to keep our eyes open for better solution.

Start

Switch mechanism

Some soaking in different poisons 🚱

 

Clean parts. Notice that fancy princess toothbrush, I borrowed from kids 😃

Resistance wire, broken points marked

Finished and clean!

Brake pedal and steering pole

Yo,

We've done something. I removed brake pedal and main cylinder, steering pole and cleaned out some wires.
The former owner had changed that brake cylinder from original to two circuit model. It has worked well, and has been probably lot better than original one. 😄
We will make front brakes to disc brakes, and add booster, if we can  fit it somewhere.

Brake pedal assembly

Main cylinder

Steering pole

Wire mess before cleaning it out

Gauge panel and inner fenders

Hello!

It's been a while, because we've had a lot more things to do, but some progress has been made.

We took those inner fenders and radiator off. We need a new radiator, because this old one leaks a little, and it is anyway quite old, wrinkly and fragile. I thought to make it from some universal radiator, because it's little cheaper and quite easy to do.
Today I took a gauge panel and heater control panel out. All those plexiglasses have shattered over time, so we need to do something for them. We'll be wiser, when we peek inside gauge panel someday. 😊 Speedometer, fuel- and ammeter works very well. Oil pressure gauge also works, only pipe, that goes from engine block to gauge, broke few years ago, so i just put a plug on it, so it wasn't in use. Trip- and odometer and temperature gauge have never worked, so we need to fix those.

Naked face, radiator frame still hanging there.

Radiator back...

...and front

Gauge panel front...

...and back

Heater control panel is also a beautiful piece of good design.

Wires goes there

Dashboard

Dashboard now decorates our garage wall. 😊

This one was little tricky to take, because all little this and that attached to it, and wires stick to everything. We also found two pennies hiding under the dash, somewhere near glove box. Still need to remove gauge panel nicely, and of course everything else. Radio itself is a one piece of art. It has always been broken. Few years ago, I took that old speaker out, and replaced it with two little better speakers, and wired them to radio, that I had in glove box. I think, I'll stay in same setting with this, only refine it to sound and work little better.
Next time, I think is good time to remove those inner fenders and else. See you then!

Sonomatic

Mess

Two of these bad boys were hiding under the dash.

Pop the hood!

Howdy again!

Some progress has been made. We removed front fenders, hood, front doors and some other smaller parts. Car is still someway drivable, so we can move it to the garage and out, when necessary.

Everything is quite easy to remove, because everything is attached with nuts and bolts. We couldn't remove inner fenders yet, because they hold radiator frame up, and we didn't want to take radiator off yet. Front fenders are in pretty good shape, because mud and shit has protected the steel very well.

Let pictures speak more:

Dropped the grill 🍖

Drivers side fender

Popped the hood!

Little bit more

Knock, knock?

Day 2

Hello again!

Today was time for bumpers to bump off. I also removed tail lights, portholes, backseats and upholstery from trunk. Whole front bumper assembly was attached with four big bolts to chassis. It's lot easier to remove whole thing down first, and then take it in smaller pieces. Rear lights was attached very well with 5 bolts from the back of light assembly, little bit tight space to remove those, but possible when you have small hands. 😃
When I started to take that plane ornament off from the hood, I noticed an 11mm socket for ½" ratchet wrench just hanging from one bolt. 😲 It's been hanging there at least 7 years, but possibly lot longer, because I have never touched that. I think, it's been there since Estonian paint job.  Through all these years, all these kilometers and winds it has hanged there, sticky bastard.

Rear bumper

Back light is well attached

Front

Detail of front bumper assembly

This tenacious little friend deserves a medal 🏆

It has begun!

First part out!

Very first parts we removed; door panels, side strips  and inner window strips, and some other small parts. Luckily side strips are in pretty good condition, only few dents, that needs to be straighten. Door panels was moldy and ugly from backside. We still drove last runs before tearing any bigger parts off. But this is a good start to our Big fix! 😎

Removing sidestrips

Some view from backseat

Door panels, back and front

Line of holes

Flower power in rear window seal 🌿

Tervetuloa / Welcome!

Welcome to our blog!

We are married couple from eastern Finland, who loves old cars, good music and spend time together. We've had this '56 Buick Special about 6 years, and now it's time to do total overhaul and make this car matching more to our own twisted preferences. 😃 
Engine is 322cid Nailhead, and gearbox is Dynaflow, that I overhauled few years ago.
We don't know very much history of this car, only that it's shipped from Estonia to Finland somewhere before 2010, not very sure of the year. Car is at least painted in Estonia.