Been grinding away on a 50 jetback. Basically the entire bottom 6" of the car was gone. another 50 jetback came up about 2 hours from me. I couldn't resist and had to go take a look. What a find....Car was blown apart in the mid 70's and kept in a garage. Every thing has been bagged and labeled, including every factory nut and bolt. Totally rust free except floor pans. No biggie. Much easier than inner and outer rockers plus the entire floor that I've been working on. Factory visor, all the glass. (including the rear!) Perfect rockers and doors. Not a piece missing. I even have seats, which I didn't have before!! None of the door and window parts are rusty and stuck. Took it home, next day swapped bodies onto the chassis I have already dialed with a Nailhead. Couldn't be more stoked. Just need to order rubber for the glass and the dash can go in after the windshield and can wire it. This saved me a TON of time. Now I'm confident I can get it back together and on the road by mid May and enjoy the hell out if it all summer! Really happy. Wife doesn't care, so I had to share with people who understand. Thanks for entertaining my giddyness...
I had one of those. A Special with a stick shift. It was one of the best cars I have ever had. Yours looks great. When the transmission went out on mine the first time, I Was able to get a rebuilt at Sears for less than a hundred bucks. Not so the second time, so down the road it went.
Nice find, always much easier to start with a more complete car that needs less metal repairs. You also have spare parts, or can probably sell off what you have leftover to recoup some money.
Totally understand. LOL All the parts. Good sheet metal. What a great boost. Have fun. And a Nailhead motor too. Awesome.
Always buy the nicest car you can afford. You will always be money ahead in the long run. Love those 40's and 50's Buicks.
Update..as I'm going through everything, I can't believe it. Totally intact door panels. No rips in the backing. Still have the chrome trim. ...unreal...
Kinda hard to find those around here, I had a Super. Does your have the hood latch in the porthole or is it a pull cable to open either side of the hood.
Floors were totally gone, so slowly going piece by piece. Not good enough yet to shape real large pieces, so its a patch quilt, but really solid. Was going to grind it all and make it pretty, but now gunna skip it. Have sound deadener and carpet going over the top, si I'll keep the strength. lessons learned: it's never as straight forward as you think at first glance And there's always more rust that the mig welder will find. The saving grace is that Buick didnt put carpet under the seats, which saved the structure. Everything that had carpet over it was totally vaporized.
Is there a long welded seam along the roof skin, just above the driver's door and quarter window? What was that from? Floors look nice, and the second car sure seems like the way to go. Once you're all done, you can eBay the leftovers/duplicates, those cars part out really well. They're good looking cars, and the Nailhead is neat, too.
Sometime in the last 75 years the roof was cut off and put back on. No idea when or why. Whoever did it did one hell of a job though. I've been all through it. No pinhole, really straight. No warping. Very strange though
That's interesting, I wish that car could tell that story. That's a pretty unusual repair for a 50's car, something would really have to tear up that roof to get a whole new one put on, or just to cut it off and put it back on. Today you'd do that for hail damage, but not on that car. Also a very difficult welding repair on a huge open panel like that.
Really strange. The whole roof was taken to bare metal and primed as well. And not with a rattle can. It had to be a body shop and from what I can tell, a really good one. Roof is dead straight
Could be. Who knows... I'm just gunna wire wheel and seam seal the inside and call it good. Headliner will take care of the eye sore.
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