It seems like I bought this old Buick just a year ago, when actually it was twenty years ago!  We have been working on it, having completed the drive train, brakes, body work, paint, chrome and then about 3-4 years ago, I put it in the corner of one of the garages and finished two other cars:  the Jag MK2 and the 51 Packard Hardtop.  But now its time to finish the Buick.  Whats left is to put the chrome on, finish assemblingthe windows and detailing.

        A couple of weeks ago, I changed the oil and filter.  I use VR-1 Valvoline with a Wix filter and the car was very close to a garage wall, so I jacked it up on one side and drained the oil.  When I refilled it, it would only take 4 quarts instead of the 7 with filter as indicated in the Motors Manual.  Then I realized that when I drained the car, it was on a slant, letting old oil to go to one side of the pan, and that left 2 quarts of old oil in the pan.  So I jacked the car up level, drained the pan, 6 quarts came out but I could see the new and old oil where they had mixed.  Now I put in 6 more new quarts of VR-1 and left the one quart of new oil I had put in the filter.  Ive put the Buick up on skates so now I can move it where I want it.  Its in a double garage with its assembly parts all around it.  even though it has been in a dry garage, it needed a good washing and clay barring.  Clay bars come in Heavy, Medium and Fine, so Woody headed up this project and grabbed a clay bar.  Clay bars arent actually made of clay, but are an elastic, malleable resin compound.  They are rubbed across the paint with the aid of a lubricant such as spray detailer, then hand-cleaned the paint.  Woody kneaded the bar every so often to make a clean bar, keeping any particles from scratching the newly-cleaned finish.  He went from the front of the car to the back.  This will increase the bond of waxes to paint, and will let him buff with a foam pad and compound, bringing out maximum shine.  Then hand-polish off with a microfiber towel.  While Woody was clay barring, I was refurbishing the factory wire wheel caps.  These are very well made and consist of four sections:  A bolt plate riveted to a wire section, a stainless ring with a stainless Vcap to cover the bolts (this cap just pushes on and snaps into place held by four expandable clips).  I have 5 wire caps; 4 for the wheels and one for the spare.  I bought these caps a few years ago.  My car came with the Vpainted V-8 hubcaps, so the disassembly and mounting was all new to me.  I could have taken them apart and sent them to the plater, but I didn't want to do that.  I wanted a hand-kept-from-new look.  I had a similar set of 65 -67 Chevy bowtie caps that came apart in 3 sections with screws that I had on my 67 SS 396 Chevelle.  I would take them apart and clean them in the Spring of each year for the 8 years that I owned the car.  The 53's are held together with 8 3/16rivets.  every part of the cap assembly could be polished using a Dremel tool, leaving the semi-gloss black bolt plate to paint.  The trouble with leaving the assembly together was that the wires covered the bolt plate, making it hard to paint between the wires.  However, using a soft bristle brush, I could hand paint between the wires, then wipe off any residue.  I tried that first, then turned the bolt plate over and sprayed the back side semi-gloss Black, then cleaned the wires on the front side of the wire caps with an SOS pad.  Using a Dremel (1/8shank) wire brush, I cleaned the wires and years of crud from everything.  This used up 6-7 Dremel brushes. Then, using a Dremel buffing pad and Simichrome, polished everything.  I chose the slower Dremel route, because using my ½ HP buffer would have probably been too aggressive for the tight places on the caps and left compound buildup in the wires.  It was slow, but was the right way to go.

        I decided on my spare tire cap to drill the rivets out and disassemble it.  This allowed me to sand and spray the bolt plate and use the Dremel on everything else.  I am in the process of putting this cap back together now.  In this detail pictur, you will notice that I didnt paint the center stainless snap-on cap.  They are painted gloss black with the Vleft stainless and the three embossed graphics left unpainted.  Since we still have buffing and chrome assembly to do, I will paint the caps later and will feature them in an upcoming article.  

        To put the caps on, you remove 3 lug bolts from the small holes.  Leave 2 lug bolts on the car.  They go through 2 bigger holes in the wire caps.  This allows you to leave the rim on the car held by the 2 lugs in the larger holes.  Then you can push the caps on over the 2 lugs on the larger holes.  Also notice Fig. 2, when the cap is on, the rim color shows through around the semi-gloss background behind the wires.  Studying factory photos, some cars had the rims painted all black.  This keeps the rim color from showing around the black bolt plate, but leaves a black ring showing around the cap, making the white walls look smaller.  Some factory photos show the rims to be car color, like my white car, which lets the white wall blend with the outside rim ring color, and they have painted the flat surface of the rim semi-gloss Black to make the entire surface behind the wires Black.  Thats what I'm going to do.  I left it white in the article to show you the difference.  

This page shows a wire cap with rivets drilled out and each section restored and re-riveted back together.
Next will be buffing.  Put those projects back together and Keep em Driving!