Just purchased a 1981 Indy 500 pace car

Hey Kid, nice find. Flint's Sloan Museum has the Original Pace Car from 81 on display. Thought you might like the link.
http://sloanlongway.org/1981-buick-regal-pace-car/
Really nice folks there and I am sure they could help you if you needed more research on the production car you now own !!! It's a great place to visit. I grew up in Flint and always enjoyed going to the Sloan Museum.
 
Hey Kid, nice find. Flint's Sloan Museum has the Original Pace Car from 81 on display. Thought you might like the link.
http://sloanlongway.org/1981-buick-regal-pace-car/
Really nice folks there and I am sure they could help you if you needed more research on the production car you now own !!! It's a great place to visit. I grew up in Flint and always enjoyed going to the Sloan Museum.

I’ll have to check them out, I’ve heard they have a nice collection
 
Just happened to be going through Flint's Bishop Airport on November 02 2018 and snapped this shot in the lobby. :cool:
How's your progress NCTyphoonKid ?
81 Indy Pace Car.jpeg
 
A lot has been going on, new brakes, new brake lines rubber and metal, new shocks, endlinks, shifter cable is fixed had to track down a original genuine gm cable I now have two of those cables as I bought a spare also. Pulled the engine out Friday night and it just amazes me the stuff people do I think the guy iirc said he paid someone a couple hundred bucks to install this newer 84-85 3.8 well they didn’t do a good job at all it’s probably a good thing they didn’t get this driveable as the bellhousing bolts were not only loose there were only 2 of 6 installed. The engine was trying to pull away from the trans probably would’ve broken the bellhousing. The motor mount bolts were loose, one was way to small so the engine liked to rock back and forth. The torque converter bolts they put a lock washer on pretty sure they don’t use lock washers on them I’ll have to look in my service manual and double check as these look newer, they just cut misc grounds and wires off the donor car this newer engine came from and shoved it in the engine bay of the Indy I guess just to see if it would run. I put it back on the ground yesterday and rolled it out to pressure wash the engine bay and plan on going through the wiring harness to see if it’s been butchered i don’t think it has but still going to check. Also going to reloom the harness and may do some rerouting just to clean things up. Glad to get this mess of a engine out. Can’t wait to get the original engine back from the machine shop I will be repainting it in the GM corporate blue it originally left the factory with. Also have a mint original air cleaner assembly that will be here Monday or Tuesday for it
 

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Worked under the hood today started cleaning and working on the wiring harness along with painting a few misc brackets and bolts. I do plan on painting the frame and core support however I am kinda stuck on the firewall, reason being because of the factory markings on it. I really don’t want to paint over them I can probably recreate them yes but I don’t want to take away from the car it’s never going to be a pebble beach concourse car by any means however I do want to keep as much originality as I can. What would you do if it was your car? Clean it up and clear it? Or paint it?
 

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... it’s never going to be a pebble beach concourse car by any means however I do want to keep as much originality as I can. What would you do if it was your car? Clean it up and clear it? Or paint it?
How many of them are left? My opinion (fwiw) - Rare Car - "preserve" as much as possible.
 
In my humble opinion, I concur with Mark T-TB.... but its your car and a rare one to boot.
 
I think for now I will leave the firewall alone. I to agree that it probably needs to be preserved, who knows how many of the 150 are left. I’ve asked on a couple different sites and most actually say preserve it rather than repaint however I did get a couple say repaint.
 
I got quite a bit done on the wiring harness this evening I went through it checked for any damage and repaired a couple wires and did quite a bit of tidying up. I’ve got to pick up some smaller loom for a few misc ground wires tomorrow but it definitely made a huge improvement compared to the mess I started with.
 

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Nice, Your getting there. Just make sure when yur done, you drive the shit out of it & Enjoy !!! ....... & hope to see you at Back to the Bricks -
https://backtothebricks.org/

I plan on enjoying it, going to rock the patina look for now with it I think it will get more attention in its patina uniform but I will probably repaint in a few years, I just want to enjoy it right now. That back to the bricks looks fun but it’s a pretty good hike for me though this year
 
Been poking along on the Buick I’ve been working on cleaning up and painting misc hardware and brackets. I’ve started reassembling some pieces. Picked up a 1982 intake and carb that is more correct for the car than the 84+ engine that was just thrown in the car when I got it. Also picked up a rare Buick motorsports banner, this is the second one I’ve seen so I jumped on it the other one I’ve seen is in my dads garage and he refuses to give it to me until he his dead so I guess at that point I will have two of them lol
 

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The Buick Motorsports banner came in the mail today so I got it hung up this evening very happy to have it in my collection.
 

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Got my one piece air dam installed very nice piece I think it looks awesome
 

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It’s coming along hoping to have motor back in July. Hoping to make one show with it this year. Still have to order wheels, tires and exhaust and any other misc pieces I may need for the motor.
 
I believe this is the first year buick did the pace car at Indy .
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