1965 Buick Skylark 4 door. A fun cruiser...wanting to trade for something else.

Howdy folks,

I have this '65 Buick Skylark 4 door with 300 c.i. V8 and a TH350 transmission.  

You might remember it from this thread (or might just as likely not):  Buick Skylark Automobile Thread

I'd really prefer to trade this car for something else.  I'm not going to put a price on it.  If you want to take a look and make an offer, that's fine, but as I mentioned...I'm really looking for a trade.

About the car.  It runs, it drives.  The drivetrain have been VERY solid for me.

Problems:

Rust.  It has it.  It's not "surface rust."  It's '60s muscle car rust.  It's not worth fixing in my opinion.

The windshield will leak and drip on the passenger floorboard when it rains (so I keep it inside or under a cover).  

There is a leak in the brake system.  I expect this is probably a wheel cylinder or something.  I know this is the kind of sentence that will give some a brain hemmorrage, but I have just been topping off the master cylinder and driving.  

I think the starter is going out.  Whether or not that gets fixed by me is negotiable...I might get to it pretty soon anyway.  it usually starts up just fine.  Usually.  

What do I want in trade?  I'd love a different "family cruiser" type car...but I'm also interested in other, more hot-roddy projects.  Stuff on my not-so-short short list include:  

GM G-body Stuff  (Malibu, Cutlass, Regal)  

S10/S15 2 wheel drive stuff (2 door blazer or standard cab shortbed pickup)  

B-body GM stuff (Caprice, etc) particularly in Wagon or 2 door form  

Ford Fox Body Stuff (Fairmont/Zephyr, Capri, Mustang) and Merkur XR4Ti  

Pinto, Mustang II, Falcon, Courier, Panther platform stuff.

Porsche 944s and BMW E30s and such are like flames to my inner moth...  

Miatas and MR2s are on my list.  The most sensible non-sensible (because 2 seats) cars ever.   

I could use a Good Tahoe/Yukon.

That's just what comes to mind while typing the post.  You get the idea.

You'll see some photos of the car with Aluminum wheels below but I want to be VERY CLEAR that these wheels are owned by a different project and will not be included with the Skylark  

I have a dual circuit brake master cylinder that will be included with the car.  I figured I'd get around to installing it some day.  That would be a nice safety upgrade for it.

I'm located in the middle of Missouri on Interstate 70.  Columbia, MO, to be specific.

This is very cool. We might have to chat.

Sounds good!  (you probably are already aware but) I'm Alex...we met briefly at SingleSlammer's house one evening.

Yep I remember for sure.

Currently trying to justify a 6th project to myself right now. 

Ha!

Well...as I've always said every time I bring home a different project, "It's not about need!"  (when someone inevitably asks, "What do you need that for?!")

You suck.  I'm glad this is eleventy billion hours from me.  

Cool car. Um, I happen to have a b-body wagon. If you still have this at the end of summer maybe we should talk.

pm sent!

Well, it took a while to align schedules, but today we made a trade!

We each drove about 3 hours to meet in the middle, made the swap, and then drove home. Luckily no issues with either car.

My plan is to just drive it. (After looking at the brakes and tires). Take the kids to ice cream, go on short errands, etc. I do want to try and clean up the paint on the roof and hood, but I also don't want to get crazy with doing stuff on it. Build continuation thread coming shortly. Home:

Yes, the trade happened yesterday.  It took us a while to finally get together.  Mostly because the FIRST time we tried to do this, back in early August, the old Skylark quit on me about an hour into the drive to meet (1/6 of the way to its new home).  That made for a pretty long day and one new friend made (a fellow gearhead who stopped to check on me and ended up offering to and then towing me all the way back home). 

Oops, attempt one is officially a failure:  

Turned out the original nylon-overmolded cam sprocket came apart.

Here's what that looked like:

New chain and sprockets:

I also dropped the pan to clean all the nylon bits out of it.  Once all buttoned back up it was just a matter of finding time.  Yesterday was that day.  I will admit, it was a nailbiter for me.  Really only because of the fact that it quit on me the first time.  The Skylark has always treated us well otherwise.  So, getting to the meeting spot was a relief.  Hearing that Robbie made it all the way home without incident was the REAL relief.  

In MO, when you bring a vehicle in from out of state, you have to get a VIN verification inspection done in order to apply for a title.   (A regular safety inspection covers this, but if/when I license this it will get "Historic" tags which don't require a safety inspection).  So today, I drove the Miata in to work and had a customer do an inspection for me.  Here's what today looked like:  

I'm glad we didn't have this weather yesterday while we were both driving 6+ hours!