Thread: Hello from the deserts of SoCal

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ey guys/girls,

My name is Jon and I am new here to the forums. I figured that I would introduce myself as you may be seeing quite a bit of me around here.


A little bit about me....

I am 28 years old and live in Victorville California. While I get plenty of sunshine here its not all bikinis like everyone thinks. I actually live in the desert where we get weather. In fact we had snow just a couple weeks ago.... its gone now of course.

I work for the phone company installing and maintaining Verizon Fios Phone Internet and TV services and have lots of schooling in computer information systems and information technology, which unfortunately doesnt seem to do me much good in this economy....

I am married with 3 children, a dog that my wife thinks I would choose over her, a cat which would choose me over her and some fish.

The Project....

All my many moons of life have been spent around cars. I am a master of nothing but a wannabe jack of all. I began like any person my age working on honda civics where I progressed to working on motorcycles and trucks. It has been my dream though to have a hot rod and the cars from the 50s inspire me. However I like to go against the grain a bit and did not want to have a car everyone has seen over and over... like the chevy and ford cars... not that there is anything wrong with those cars, So I of course chose a Buick. A 1957 Buick Special to be exact. A its a true 2dr hardtop without a post.

I have lots of plans for the car and many of these plans are beyond me. But I want to learn.... So I will be spending alot of time here. If anyone is close by to me here in california and wants to offer training I would be all over it. Welding, grinding, body work etc....

Here are some of the plans that have been set in motion....

Being that its a buick and I didnt want a "cookie cutter" smallblock chevy. While I do love those motors and they have tons of parts available cheaply I decided to keep a nailhead in the car and will be installing a 425 Nailhead from a 64 Riviera backed by the TH400's cousin the SP400 with the Switch Pitch converter. (If anyone needs one of these transmissions let me know as I have an extra)

The outside I want to keep stock with the exception of louvering the hood and of course a proper paint job. I appreciate all the rat rodders out there and my truck has alot of flat black to it, but a car this big to me needs a shiny color. Right now I am looking at a nice Teal and White two tone combo but would love to have white ghost flames on it.

Interior is still up in the air. The only ting I know for sure is I want a 57 olds dash in there. The hard part is finding someone willing to let me cut the dash out of their parts car.

Most of the other changes will be under the car. Doing the motor and trans swap necessitates the need to convert to an open drive instead of the torque tube so I will be putting in a 96 impala police special rear end in. The width is just about spot on with the original and it maintains my 5x5 bolt pattern and adds disc brakes in the back. I will have to fab up a 4-link or some other way of keeping it in place. I am also still looking at what to do to the front. Those 700 dollar ball joints are coming out as a preventative measure and I will figure out what to stick under there. I want a MII style but it has to be strong enough to hold this car up. Fatman seems to be the only company with a kit specific to my car.

I have a long long way to go so fingers crossed....

If anyone has a 57 parts car, I may need parts. Also if you have an olds with that dash I want hit me up....


Here she is coming home with me,








The hood was just louvered.




Next week it will be blasted along with my fenders, inner fenders, core support etc... and sealed/primed

Welcome to CHR!! That's a sweet hardtop, and keeping a nailhead in it is double sweet. Will look forward to seeing your progress as you move through the project.

Hey Jon, welcome to CHR!!! The Buick looks to be in great shape!!!! That High Desert area certainly does give up some very fine vintage tin!!!! Anxious to watch the build on this one, got a '54 Buick myself that I might actually have time and space to get started on someday!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks guys. This will be a looooooooooong project. I picked the car up over the summer so I haven't had it very long.

Too many ideas going through my head at once and it changes every day.

The car is pretty good but needs alot of work. most of the primer on the car is rattle canned. I am surprised at the condition of the fenders that are on it though. No filler anywhere on them and really straight!

The hood itself has light surface rust which should come off nicely. My major concern is what I am going to get myself into when I strip down the cab.

The roof looks decent with original paint on it but I know the passenger quarter was replaced by the guy who "started" this project before me.... From what I can tell from an unexperienced eye the welds suck and he didn't weld the holes shut that he drilled to line the replacement quarter on with, from inside the car you can see filler coming through into the panels. While it looks decent I think there is alot of filler on that part of the car. Only time will tell though.

First things first, the floors and rockers need to be replaced. Then its on to the frame and suspension.

if you have all the glass for that car lock it up some place safe that will be tough to come by .....ted

Lol ted that's what I noticed as well.... the glass isn't hard to find but its pricey. The good news is that the speciaql, century and 57 ols used the same glass. When I got the car one of the back quarters was missing and I got a replacement for 50 bucks. Other than that I have all the glass. I need to replace a cracked flat piece tho.


Dave the car actually didn't come from the high desert. I got it from down in the san diego area. Overall its pretty good. The fenders were really nice filler and rust free panels. The heater core leaked at one point and rusted the floors ao those will be replaced and so will the rocker panels.

The only thing I'm worried about is the passenger quarter. The guy I got the car from have pictures of him replacing it with one cut from another vehicle... I don't know how to weld but the other welds I can see don't look very good and I'm worried about how much filler he may have used... its on straight though... looking inside the rear window area I can see spaghetti from him filling the holes with bondo rather than welding them shut.

Oh well. The project moves on.