455 Buick Rehash

1. You might be familiar with this 455's smoky burnout prowess if you witnessed it in action under the hood of our "Insane Fun with a Total Beater" (June '98) '72 Electra 225. The four-door deuce-an'-a-quarta relinquished its power before heading to the boneyard, but not before we took it to the coin-op car wash and squirted off 26 years of oil spooge. Once the engine was on the stand, we threw away all the junk we'd never need, like the A/C compressor, power steering pump, and all the smog garbage.

2. We knew the 'Bu motor was good enough to clean up and swap into our '65 without a rebuild because it ran well in the Electra, and the original owner swore it had never been rebuilt. A compression test verified that nothing was too wasted, and all the plugs looked pretty happy too. However, check out how the 4, 3, 6, and 5 plugs are kinda dark. Funky.

3. Next, we removed all the accessories we'd eventually reuse and kept track of which bolts went where. The desconging process began by using a gasket scraper to peel off the thick layer of caked-on Pennzoil frosting. The fun ended after the first hour of scraping, but the key to making a dirtball mill look like a fresh resto is in making it as clean as possible before painting. Scrape every nook and cranny over and over, and catch the crud in an inverted garbage can lid or you'll get it all over the ground, track it into the house, and your mom will yell at you.

4. Castrol Super Clean is the nastiest commercially available degreaser we've ever used--and that's a good thing! This stuff'll burn your skin, so we squirt it with latex gloves on and wear full facial protection. No kidding. Note that we've left on all the parts that will seal water from entering the engine and stuffed any open holes with rags. Between several dousings of Super Clean we still had to pick grease boogers from the crannies of the block and keep at it until it was spotless. Time spent now is crucial to the engine's final appearance. After the final hose-down, we unbolted the intake, valve covers, timing cover, and oil pan, then gave all the gasket surfaces a double-duty scraping. The freeze plugs were pretty much gonzo, so we removed them too. Our new kit from PAW didn't include the freeze plugs for the cylinder heads, so be forewarned that an extra trip to the parts store will be needed.

5. Here's some new goop we just came across: Eastwood's PRE Painting Prep. Just squirt it on the surface to be painted, then wipe it off to remove any oils and other stuff or paint won't stick well. In the past we've used brake cleaner for this purpose, but the PRE prep seems to leave no residue, and Eastwood claims that it prevents flash rust for a few weeks. Works good--just use a lint-free rag.

6. Before painting, we threw on the oil pan with a few bolts and went nuts with masking tape. Tech tip: Stick the tape right to the machined surfaces, then use a razor blade to trim the tape to the desired shape. Stuff wads of tape in the spark plug holes, and don't worry about masking the exhaust ports.

7. We fogged the engine with Eastwood's Engine Paint in Ford/Chrysler Red, which is just a bit darker than the stock Buick Red (not available), but who's gonna notice? Our technique is to lightly mist the entire engine with paint before adding heavier layers; it seems to prevent fisheyes and runs. The sheen of the paint will be altered by how you spray it: A final thick coat sprayed close will give a smooth, shiny appearance. Spray from a bit more distance and you'll get a slightly flatter texture. We prefer the former.

8. While the engine was drying, we spent about an hour in front of a wire wheel on the bench grinder cleaning up the threads and the heads of all the old bolts. To finish 'em, we punched the bolts through a chunk of cardboard and squirted the heads with a few light coats of Eastwood's Underhood Black. The company's Chassis Black offers a shinier, more durable finish, but it's an epoxy and we're too impatient to wait for it to dry. Making the bolt heads black gives the engine a much more detailed look, far superior to painting the bolts engine color once they're in place.

9a&b. We also spent lots of time with our Eastwood sandblaster--if you don't have a 'blaster, trust us, you need one. After chunking all the greasy, grimy gopher guts from these accessories, we blasted them and painted them with Underhood Black. The before-and-after is much more dramatic in person than in these photos.

9b.