LUCKY DEVIL 13
Greasy Gearhead
I have been workin on this for about 3 yrs off and on now. I found it at a landscaper's shop, it turns out that he and a buddy bought it from an estate auction a few years prior and his buddy lost interest in the car so he decided to sell it. Well came home talked it over with my girlfriend and she gave me the ok to buy it so I did!!! OH BOY was i in for a surprise!!! Got her home and started cleanin out all the jun k from the inside and what I found was 3/4" plywood glued to the frame of the car!! No substructure!! So I tore out all of that and proceeded to build a subfloor out of 1x1 tubing. and made new floor pans for it. Once that was done I turned to the body which didn't look too bad that was until I stripped the primer off 
found the worlds largest pile of bondo!!! I think they must've use 10 or 12 gallons of it to hold her together!!! So got that stripped off and found that the original owner had welded the front fenders and the grille shell together along with the headlight buckets and they were all wrecked!!So I pulled the front clip off and set it aside for now and pulled the motor (which runs great!!) Cleaned it all up ground the block smooth and painted and powder coated as much as I could. Once that was done I realized I needed to move the motor mounts back about 8" because it was way too far away frrom the firewall so I got that done. Then I started lookin for parts for the suspension and motor which I was told was a nova front and rear and the motor was spose to be a buick 455, well none of that was correct so now I had to search and search the internet tryin to figure out what I had Finally got it all figure out and it turned out that it was all 1975 Buick LeSabre stuff and the motor was a 350 buick. Well the original owner and his buddies starrted this build in the late 70's and apparently used whatever they could find laying around to build it parts which included a bedframe for supports and bailing wire to hold the gastank in place and extension cord was wired up to the brake lights the steering column was held up with a massive bolt which they drilled a hole thru the top of the cowl and then used plumbers tape to bolt it to!!! It was truly scary to think that these guys were gonna drive this thing!!!! So needless to say that ALL got ripped out!! Next it was on to searchin out fenders and grille shell for the old girl. Well not having much success I had talk to a guy where I was workin and he told me he had a gentleman on his delivery route that restores packards!! SCORE!!!! [cl[cl[cl He gave me his number and told me I wouldn't be able to get in touch with him til spring as he is a snow bird....So waited for a few months finally got in touch with him and he gave me another gentlemans number and I called him he told me he had everything I was looking for and to come up and take a look so that weekend off I go on a 5 hour drive to his place to look at the parts and man what a killer find!! This guy had a TON of parts!!!!He sold me the fenders and grille shell that was still atttached to the core supprt for $300!!!! Plus he gave me a set of headlight buckets and a rear door from a '38 packard hearde!!! for FREE!!!! Well when I got back on the build a buddy said he wanted to help but if he was gonna help we had to chop the top I said OK let's do it!! Well we got the chop done and realized that all of the steel they used for the rear of the car was junk so that all got stripped off and tossed in to the scrap pile and we started to rebuild the car from the doors back from scratch. I ordered up a ton of parts for the suspension and brand new set of wheels n tires all new brake hardware new wiring harness tail lights pretty much eveything I needed. We got quite a bit done on the car and then we both got a lil burnt out on it so it has been set on the back burner now until I get my 42 finished.. Well it won't let me upload the pics I will try again later
found the worlds largest pile of bondo!!! I think they must've use 10 or 12 gallons of it to hold her together!!! So got that stripped off and found that the original owner had welded the front fenders and the grille shell together along with the headlight buckets and they were all wrecked!!So I pulled the front clip off and set it aside for now and pulled the motor (which runs great!!) Cleaned it all up ground the block smooth and painted and powder coated as much as I could. Once that was done I realized I needed to move the motor mounts back about 8" because it was way too far away frrom the firewall so I got that done. Then I started lookin for parts for the suspension and motor which I was told was a nova front and rear and the motor was spose to be a buick 455, well none of that was correct so now I had to search and search the internet tryin to figure out what I had Finally got it all figure out and it turned out that it was all 1975 Buick LeSabre stuff and the motor was a 350 buick. Well the original owner and his buddies starrted this build in the late 70's and apparently used whatever they could find laying around to build it parts which included a bedframe for supports and bailing wire to hold the gastank in place and extension cord was wired up to the brake lights the steering column was held up with a massive bolt which they drilled a hole thru the top of the cowl and then used plumbers tape to bolt it to!!! It was truly scary to think that these guys were gonna drive this thing!!!! So needless to say that ALL got ripped out!! Next it was on to searchin out fenders and grille shell for the old girl. Well not having much success I had talk to a guy where I was workin and he told me he had a gentleman on his delivery route that restores packards!! SCORE!!!! [cl[cl[cl He gave me his number and told me I wouldn't be able to get in touch with him til spring as he is a snow bird....So waited for a few months finally got in touch with him and he gave me another gentlemans number and I called him he told me he had everything I was looking for and to come up and take a look so that weekend off I go on a 5 hour drive to his place to look at the parts and man what a killer find!! This guy had a TON of parts!!!!He sold me the fenders and grille shell that was still atttached to the core supprt for $300!!!! Plus he gave me a set of headlight buckets and a rear door from a '38 packard hearde!!! for FREE!!!! Well when I got back on the build a buddy said he wanted to help but if he was gonna help we had to chop the top I said OK let's do it!! Well we got the chop done and realized that all of the steel they used for the rear of the car was junk so that all got stripped off and tossed in to the scrap pile and we started to rebuild the car from the doors back from scratch. I ordered up a ton of parts for the suspension and brand new set of wheels n tires all new brake hardware new wiring harness tail lights pretty much eveything I needed. We got quite a bit done on the car and then we both got a lil burnt out on it so it has been set on the back burner now until I get my 42 finished.. Well it won't let me upload the pics I will try again later
