In the first few weeks we owned our Buick we found more things about her that needed attention. After having the entire suspension, front end, and brakes rebuilt with all new replacement parts we were able to travel far and wide with reliability and comfort. We would locate a car show for the weekend within 100 miles or so, leave Friday after work, spend the night, attend the show and head home after the show. This was in October and part of November in 2000. Bob was pretty much just the way we found her during that time. On the last return trip from a Sausage festival in Elgin TX, about 250 miles, the wind caught the ripped headliner and did a number on it. Since it was close to the end of the season we decided to take action. The paint on the roof was thin and there was some surface rust showing through so we decided to take care of that as well.
We decided when we bought her anything we did we would do right the first time to avoid spending good money after bad. In early December I found a man that worked mostly on custom cars that was willing to help with the project. I took the car to his shop for the work. The plan was for me to contact an auto glass company and have the windshield and rear windows removed and once the roof was painted they would re install the glass. Easy huh?
Well it did turn out to be pretty easy. The glass man showed up and removed the glass when he was suppose to and took it back to his place for storage. I ordered new window channel rubber and roof rail weatherstrip from Steel for the re installation, The Paint guy gave me a what I thought was a good price to do the roof on the condition I would not rush him as he was going to fit the work in between his other work. The paint was to be base coat clear coat in the original Seminole Red. By mid February it was painted and I had to drive it about 20 miles to the glass installer to have it completed. The glass installer had it about another week and it was back home for me to re install the windshield and rear window trim.
Man, did that new paint look great or what? Kind of too good! It showed how much attention was needed to the paint on the rest of the car, but that would have to wait. While waiting for the work I took the interior trim for the windshield, rear window, the trim along the top of the door and some other miscellaneous pieces to the powder coater to have re finished.
The next thing on the agenda was the headliner. Found a place in Denton that could get the original type headliner as a replacement. After he ordered the third one they finally figured out it was a model 53 and sent the correct one. Once installed it looked like it came from the factory. They did an excellent job and we were very pleased.