A detailed pictorial of my 86 T-type resotration

[turbobuick]

What started out as a simple project!
This is a detailed account of the frame off restoration of my 86 T-type. I bought the car from a good friend of mine in September of 2005. The car had rough paint and my buddy had robbed the motor and trans out of it but it was a VERY clean car to start with and had never been modified or painted so it was a very good foundation for a project like this. Like most of these projects this one started as a car I was going to put a motor in that I had lying around and throw a quick paint job on and make a nice daily driver out of to beat around in. I had a lot of parts lying around to put the car together rather cheap and it sounded like a good idea at the time.

 

[turbobuick]

The Motor Saga!

Well as most who know me know I am a racer and therefore never have a shortage of motors and motor parts lying around to go along with an insatiable appetite to constantly tinker and upgrade them. So what started out as a stock motor & turbo build ended up as a Girdled 109 stroker motor with a TA66 turbo. See if you can follow along on this story. The initial idea was to put together a mostly stock motor with a bunch of parts I had lying around. This was a wonderful idea until I got a smokin' deal on a girdled 109 motor out of Ted A's car that was complete with a set of cracked heads. The short block was in really good shape with TRW's stock crank and rods billet roller cam HV front cover, heads were cracked and needed replaced but it also came with a ported intake and T&D roller rockers. I bought a set of ported iron heads I used to own that another friend of mine still had laying around along with a new TA66 q-trim turbo. The heads are an extensively ported set of iron heads that have 1.84/1.60 valves and a custom set of off set T&D rockers. They were actually on Terry Ryans TSE car that won in BG back in the early 90's and the port work was done by a Dale Robertson who was fairly well known back in the day on the west coast for doing Buick head work. I actually bought them initially in 1997 for my TSS car and ended up trading them to Tony DeQuick who sold them to another friend and they sat till I got them back.

I intially got the car running with the girdled short block and heads above with a stock turbo, trans and took the car to the body shop where of course it sat from March 2006 till Feburary 2008

 

[turbobuick]

I still wanted something to drive for the summer of 2007 so I ended up purchasing a very very very clean 87 Limited that had a salvage title and no motor and trans. The car only had 27k miles on it and was probably one of the nicest cars I've owned. I robbed the motor out of the grey car and put in the white one and drove and raced it all summer. On a stock turbo, downpipe and intercooler it went 12.0@114mph in 90* heat at Quaker city dragway! Following that I decided to put the TA66 on the car with a new TQ converter and alcohol which didnt take long to pop a headgasket. I ended up getting anti freeze in the motor which damaged the bearing and that was the end of that engine. I pulled the motor and took the rotating assmebly stuck it in another machined block with a set of fresh unported heads stock cam and put it back in with a stock low mileage trans I had and sold the car to another board member who recently resold the car here. He put a bunch of bolt ons on the car but it looks like it did when I sold it to him
http://www.turbobuick.com/forums/cars-sale/301717-87-limited-t-32k-miles-lots-mods-nice.html

I then took the girdled block put a DLS stroker kit in it assembled it and sold that to a friend. I then sent all my left over parts to Lonnie Diers who put together the stroker motor I have now with one of his billet 200r4 transmissions.. Phew that was a saga and that is really only the highlights.

 

[turbobuick]

1st Paint job

I finally got the car back from body shop abyss in early 2008. The guy who painted it initially is the same guy that painted my TSO GN. How my GN ended up black and straight as an arrow and this car came back grey and lumpy I'll never know. Anyhow the paint was very nice but the body work was not as straight as I wanted. I had the car media blasted and between that and the 2 years of body shop dust the car was a mess especially the inside and underneath. This is when things went downhill. The car was still a roller at this point.

 

[turbobuick]

Frame off!

This is where the project snow balled. I had this killer motor trans combo and a so so body that needed a lot of work. I then decided to take the car to another friends shop where he helped me pull the body and I took the frame home to blast it and detail it.

 

[turbobuick]

The frame was VERY clean, you can easily make out both VIN numbers on the top side and there was very little rust pitting. This project is an accumulation of 20 years collecting NOS parts and various parts off the GN's that I've owned and raced over the years. The rear suspension is the original HR parts stuff off my TSO car with the UCA and LCA and a new HR parts sway bar. The shocks are the Koni's and C&E's off my old TSS car. I bought bell tech drop spindles and rear springs. The lines are all stainless steel and the front UCA and LCA's are the originals off my 34k mile TSO car that I detailed. I bought the rims off a 3rd gen guy and they are pretty much MINT non-dimple charcoal grey GTA wheels I put the fronts on the rear etc. I played and played with spacers on the fronts until I finally decided to build m own custom set for the front which put the rim where it needed to be. The spacer is both wheel centric and hub centric and required the nose of the rotor to be turned on a lath.

 

[turbobuick]

While I had the frame my friend went to work on the body. He really did a fantastic job and the paint and body are as nice as can be. He straightened the body repainted it and detailed the firewall and undercarriage. He placed the body on another frame to move it around and do the paint work. Car was painted the second time in early 2009.

 

[turbobuick]

More painting pics.

 

[turbobuick]

More pics!

 

[turbobuick]

The body went back on the frame with the engine and trans installed in Summer 2009.

 

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Car is home and assembly begins

 

[turbobuick]

More assembly pics

 

[turbobuick]

Finally had the car assembled to the point it was running and we were actually able to take the car to the dyno to break in the new motor. We made a few low boost pulls at 17psi and pump gas in the car. It made 459rwhp!!

 

[turbobuick]

Car was in storage for most of the winter and I finally got moving again on the project with in the last month. It is really starting to come together. I shot these pics yesterday for the insurance company. I have a bunch of small things to finish up but should have it on the road by next week. Once I get it out I plan to take a bunch of detailed pics with a real camera which my Blackberry is not!!

 

[Grumpy]

You def have way to much idle time to do something like this very nice !! oh ya.. I miss the Limited to

 

[turbobuick]

You def have way to much idle time to do something like this very nice !! oh ya.. I miss the Limited to

LOL, this is all in my spare time when I wasn't working on my TSO car I definitely need a break. TSO car is sold and I am planning to cruise this all summer and hopefully not work on anything even though I've already started the next project which is going to be my outlaw drag radial car. Then again I was thinking of selling it all, buying a new CTS-V joining a country club and learning how to golf!! Only problem with that would be the hot rod golf cart with wheelie bars I would have to have to drag race the other golfers to the next hole, lol There is something inherently wrong with a hobby that requires and helmet, firesuit and a parachute all at the same time!

 

[scot w.]

Very nice!! Way to bring one back to life.

 

[gn240z]

truly amazing

oh, i love the 94 inspection sticker on it still, nice nice build of my old car. love the digital climate control.

golf? who are you kidding? i mean really !!!!!!

i'm building mini coopers now... that might just qualify as a golf cart? uh oh.

 

[8secmach1]

His pics suck and don't do this car justice. I've seen it in various stages and it's just perfect. I doubt I would drive a car this nice, too damn nice for the street imo. The dude knows his Buicks that's for sure

 

[charlief1]

Very nicely done. I just hope mine looks half as good as yours does.