» Grand National

The Grand National Experiment Continues

Paul Hundrieser — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 04:48:10 +0000

Ok, we last left off with me finding some more of that fun rust. Basically there was nothing to salvage out of the frame and body from this car. I gave Brian a call at http://gbodyparts.com/. I have dealt with him before getting some of those hard to find parts and some performance parts and he’s always been awesome.

I tell him the situation, and he lets me know it just so happens he’s getting a 1986 T Type rolling chassis (no engine or trans), it’s in great shape, and is a T TOP. I wanted a body with t tops again, because I love them, but they are sometimes hard to find. So, I end up buying the whole works for about $1200. Everything was looking sweet. However…

So, I pay for the car, and set up a shipping company to send the car from Ohio to Illinois. And I wait. And wait. I call the company, and they let me know they would be picking the car up the following week, which was 3 weeks after I set it up. I let Brian know, he says cool, and I wait for it to show up.

Brian calls me the following week, and says they never showed up. So, I call the shippers back, they say they had some problems with the truck, yada yada yada, make a long story short, I get the car 6 weeks after I bought it, and will continue this later.

My GN Part 3

Paul Hundrieser — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:02:07 +0000

The saga continues…So, I bring my baby to my buddy’s shop, thinking I’m gonna do some body work over the winter and have it back on the road by spring. Ha ha…right! First off, this was a Midwest car. If anybody out there has ever worked on an old Midwest car, they know what to expect. Lots of rust!! First off, I took off the doors and started stripping them down to see what I had. Big surprise, tons of rust. Can’t do anything with them. No big deal, I’ll just replace them. Start sanding and grinding on the rest of the body. Hood, fenders, fine. Quarterpanels…completely shot! Looks like it maybe a lot longer than just spring.

Well, I then start to work on the back end, and start to pull up all the carpet to see what I have there. Floorpans shot, and body bushing mounts are completely rusted through near rear end. Maybe that’s what that clunking noise was whenever I went over bumps…hmm? Ok, big decision here, we decide to pull the body off of the frame. Lots of work. I finally break all of the body mounts free, and am able to take the body off of the frame. Guess what I find?

R-U-S-T

The frame has total rust damage on it, and the bottom side of the body has all places to mount in back completely gone. Now what am I gonna do??

My GN Part 2

Paul Hundrieser — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:32:46 +0000

Ok, so I stole this car away from a bonehead. After about 4 years, I decided it needed to be faster, so I buddy of mine and me yanked the engine, and I brought it to a local shop and had it rebuilt. Had it bored .30 over, ported the heads, upgraded crank, cam, and pistons. Installed new 42.5 lb fuel injectors, got a bigger turbo (although I haven’t installed it yet).

As for the exhaust, I went with a Hooker 2.5″ dual, along with a Houston downpipe, which I had ceramic coated. The thing really flew after doing all of this, but something was missing…

I decided the following year to have the tranny rebuilt and tweaked. My buddy, who at one time had a crazy fast 86 T Type, told me about a local shop that does killer tranny work for these cars. I took it to this little hole in the wall shop, and he did his magic. The difference was like night and day. Unbelievable speed and power! It was now the most powerful car I had ever driven.

So, naturally, next on the list was to restore the body. Another buddy of mine has a nearby shop where he does bodywork. So, about 3 years ago I took my GN down there to start on the body…more to come later.

My GN

Paul Hundrieser — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:40:07 +0000

It’s time to talk about my pride and joy. My 1986 Buick Grand National. For those of you asking yourself “what in the world is a Grand National?” I’m gonna give you the scoop. Buick decided to do something a little different to the Regals between 1984 and 1987. First off, all the Grand Nationals were black, and had two tone black and gray interior. The did make what they called a T Type Regal which was essentially the same car, but available in different colors. However, as years went by, the GN’s were the ones with a higher value. Now there were Grand Nationals previous to 1984, but the 84-87′s are the ones that really stand out. In 84 and 85, they had a 3.8 liter V6 with a turbo, and about 215 HP. But, in 86 and 87, they added an intercooler to the package, giving it 235 HP, and a lot more zip. In 1987, Buick took 547 Grand Nationals and put extra add-ons to it, including an upgraded turbo, fender flares, cooler instrument panel, and fender louvers. They called these 547 the GNX. If you look on eBay, occasionally there will be a GNX for sale, and do not be surprised if they get up around the $75,000 mark or more.

Anyways, back to my GN. I bought this car in 2000 at a local car dealer. It had 92,000 original miles on it, and when I asked the price, I was very surprised to hear they wanted $4500 for it. So, I took it for a spin…the body was a little rough, but it ran great. Interior was in excellent shape. When I got back, I made an offer of $3500, and the salesman said he had to check with his manager. After a little bit, out comes the salesman with his cocky, annoying manager. He says, “I’ve had so many people come in here asking about that @$%#*&% car. I don’t know what the big deal is about it. It’s just a #$%@ Regal. I said “Yeah, just a Regal. Will you take $3500 for it?” He told me the lowest he could go was $3800. “I’ll take it.”