This is an introductory post to my 1963 Buick Wildcat project. I bought this car locally around September 2025. It was sold to me as a running, but not driving or stopping, project car. It’s a 4dr hard top. The body and interior are in fantastic condition with very little rust. The story told to me was that the car was parked in the early 70s and the engine was pulled. The previous owner bought the shell and installed a rebuilt '62 401 nailhead engine. This all seemed to match up since the car still had the original 1963 Washington plate with a 1971 registration sticker! Pretty wild.
The engine ran ok and the seller had receipts for the rebuild. The car needed a lot of little things, the most important being brakes and exhaust. There were a lot of discoveries in the past year, and struggles, with new parts and old parts. The main struggle was to get the engine running reliably and smoothly. Over the winter, I diagnosed and fixed the following:
- Carb flooding and running rich. Edelbrock carbs need a fuel pressure regulator set to 4-5psi. The mechanical pump on the Buick was putting out 9psi.
- Timing not set. The car was delivered to me with the distributor still loose in the block, causing the timing to drift.
- Choke not hooked up. The car was hard to start in the cold without a choke.
- Bad coil. The “new” ignition coil was bad.
- Worn resistance wire. These cars have a “resistance” wire which powers the coil during normal running. This wire was worn out. Hardwiring 12V to the coil caused the car to run fine temporarily. I installed a ballast resistor and ran new wires from the ignition switch.
- No brakes! I installed a brand new 1967 Buick brake booster and dual master cylinder (drum/drum). I replaced all four of the wheel cylinders and got all four brake drums turned. I also ran all new brake lines and hoses.
- The original gas tank wasn’t half bad, but I went ahead and installed a brand new gas tank and ran new fuel line from front to back.
- I installed a new set of Stewart-Warner gauges. The cheap-o set installed for engine break-in had a plastic oil pressure line which was leaking.
- The original radiator was shot, so I replaced that with an aluminum 2-row unit, with all new hoses and a new thermostat.
- The car had a few bits of exhaust, but I welded together a single pipe 2.5" with a turbo muffler so the car is drivable.
List of mistruths the seller told me:
- “The trans was leaking but I fixed that”. He cross-threaded one of the trans cooler lines and I had to replace the fitting entirely.
- “The exhaust manifold is missing a bolt”. The cross-over manifold was missing a stud, which was a bear to replace.
- “I tried bleeding the brakes but it didn’t work”. All four wheels had giant gouges in the brake drums and zero brake shoe material left. It looked like he tried to replace one of the wheel cylinders, which made zero sense.
Not bad, considering. I’ve replaced lots of bulbs and bits of wiring. The car runs and drives pretty well at this point but I’ve only put a few miles on it. Most importantly, I got a year of manufacture plate! More work is ongoing which I’ll update as I get it done. Upcoming work includes:
- Install Optima battery
- Fill and bleed cooling system
- Install new heater core, bleed and test heating system