the new guy.......

[Trey]

hey guys, my name is trey and i live in southern nm. just got my first centurion and couldn't be happier. shes a nice solid rust free beauty with only 35k original miles. has a few issues to work out from all the sitting around shes done in life, but after that the old gal will serve duty as my ride away from work, and for what i hope will be numerous road trips.

i fell in love with the centurion over 15 years ago when i saw a tu-tone black and gun metal 73 2 door hardtop that just gave me goose bumps. at that point i said if i ever got a chance to own one, i would jump all over it. well that chance hit me 2 days ago, and well, i jumped all over it.

the car... 1973 centurion 2 door hardtop, 455 4bbl, th400 trans not sure what rear gear she has. originally a silvery blue/green color with white interior and top. now wearing a nice dark marina blue but still retains the original top and interior. the repaint sucks, but that will be addressed soon as funds permit. it has the power seats, windows and locks. it has the bumper guards, door guards, speed warning, and seems to be pretty hard loaded.

im sure ill ask a ton of questions,and will help out where i can. i am not new to old cars by any means, i have owned over 100 classics over the years and do almost all my own work. but this is my first centurion, so i have a lot of learning to do.

[Smartin]

Welcome to the board, Trey! Looks like you found a nicely optioned 73...

[Redrob]

Looks really nice, Trey. Enjoy the car!

[Bob Alberini]

Welcome aboard, Trey. We hope you'll enjoy your Centurion and think you'll find this site most interesting and beneficial.

If you'd like to know the exact original name of your car's color, just send along the information off the vehicle's body plate and we'll identify it for you. Your car's current color is somewhat similar to the 73 Buick's Mediterranean Blue but we can tell you the correct color if you'd like to know.

[Richard Dunn]

Welcome to the Centurion family!

[Trey]

Welcome aboard, Trey. We hope you'll enjoy your Centurion and think you'll find this site most interesting and beneficial.

If you'd like to know the exact original name of your car's color, just send along the information off the vehicle's body plate and we'll identify it for you. Your car's current color is somewhat similar to the 73 Buick's Mediterranean Blue but we can tell you the correct color if you'd like to know.

thanks for the offer. as i will want to know how my car came originally, i highly doubt i will do a full restoration. i will not do anything to it that can not be reversed, but going back bone stock just isnt in my cards. i plan on driving it, and i want some better power out of the old gal. so im sure a good intake and carb, hei ignition and a really nice dual exhaust are in the near future. also these lines on this bodt are just screaming to be painted black. i know i will enjoy the board, i completely know how helpfull a forum like this can be. i am a founding member of a forum for sweptline era dodge trucks, and the help we have recieved and given over the years is priceless. only hope i can be as usefull here...

[Trey]

a few more pics of my new baby....

[73 Centurion]

Welcome,

Don't under-estimate how valuable a rust free car is. That looks like a really solid foundation for a wonderful ride. The body lines on these cars do seem made for a two tone paint job, but I've seen very few that look right. I'd suggest subtle color differences like a lighter and darker shade of the same color. The charcoal black car you mentioned sounds like it could work if the charcoal was dark enough.

If you want to build a driveable and powerful Centurion you'd be wise to read everything Adam has done to his. He's done a lot of the trial and error and can point you toward the things that work. Give the engine a good tune-up, replace all of the vacuum hoses and get everything working as it should. The first step is actually pretty cheap. Read the thread on changing the distributor advance curve on V8 Buick.com. It's pretty easy once you grasp the concept and it is the key to getting any combination of parts to work together.

Keep us posted as you progress.

[Trey]

will defiantly have to check out the web site you recommended. i have built numerous big block Chevy and dodges, even a couple Pontiac and fords, but never a Buick.

as far as the color combo i mentioned, it was a very dark charcoal silver. in the right light it looked like a solid black car. if you remember the 80's ford trucks did a very similar paint from the factory. i want a dark deep black, and a silver/gray thats only a couple shades away from black, lay some mock GS stripes on the hood in black (may even splice in the scoops), put on a fresh twin seam black top and separate all the black from the gray with a very thin red pin stripe. me and my dad were talking about the possibility of making a mock GS centurion, get the paint and badging right, swipe a center console and buckets from a rivvie, wood wrap sport wheel, and maybe even a pair of 4bbls under the hood. of course its all just dreaming on my budget right now. but its the dream of "some day" that keeps me fired up..lol

[Trey]

man i tell you, the more i play with this car the more impressed i am. shes not running up to full potential yet, but i cant resist getting behind the wheel to run into town, so i have just been driving her nice and easy and being patient while she coughs and spits if i hit the gas too hard. in any case, yesterday i was coming to my road, and didn't feel like stopping and waiting on the line of traffic coming, so i just cut the corner at what i already knew was way too fast. to my huge surprise this old car sucked on around that corner real nice. i was expecting her to lay over on the door handle like my 225 used to, but it didn't. yeah it leaned, but not anywhere near what i would have expected. to ride this nice i expected a lot crappier performance in the corners. i cant wait for the weekend to get here and get back under the hood. last weekend was distracted by plumbing issues, so i got a lot of diagnostic done, just no real work. supposed to be in the 60's Saturday and sunny, couldn't ask for better weather to be tinkering around in. so far i have found the vacuum advance was hooked to constant vacuum and not ported, and i think the timing was set with the vacuum hooked up, so its way off. the points seem to have been set by the old "that sound good" method, as was the carb idle mixture. she was missing the air butterflies off the rear barrels of the carb, why i dont know, but they are back on now. to top it all off, all 8 holes are stuffed with bosch platinum spark plugs, i hate those things, so they will be coming out real soon. ac delco or autolite work better in these big buicks??

man the clock cant tick down fast enough for me...lolol

on a good/bad side of all this, the over all absolute originality of this car has got me second guessing a modified build. i am by no means a purist, but on the same note, i am not the guy who would tear up a car that deserves a purist. this thing is about 99% rust free, only has one small parking dent, the ash tray has never been used, or the lighter, all signs point to the 35k on the clock being real original miles, nothing is missing, and everything but the clock works. she even has the air pump still hooked up and working. gonna have to give this one some serious thought. i got time to mull it all over as i get her running reliable in stock condition first. car show and cruising season is just around the corner, starts around late Feb early April here, so shes got to run good pretty fast.

im torn, i bought the car to do a stock looking but modified street car, but the more i go thru it, the more i would feel bad about a build like that. im happy as i can be that i got a really nice base to start with, but now im kinda wishing it weren't so nice so my conscience would be clear if i cut it up a bit :0/ lolol

[73 Centurion]

You're following the right steps. Get it running right, drive it around and then decide what to do from there. My car is modified but most of it can be easily returned to stock.

There's a lot you can do with a completely stock car. The 455 is a great engine. It's not that much heavier than a Chevy 350 but it's got a ton of torque. Horsepower is good at the dragstrip but driving around town torque is king. If you get the engine running as it should you'll have more power than your rear tires can handle. After that point making more power will just spin the wheels faster.

I suggest you start hunting now for a posi-traction rear axle. They are pretty rare for our big cars. The good news is they are very durable. There are pictures on here of a person who fit surprisingly large rear tires on 7" stock rims. You can greatly enhance your traction with stock parts.

These cars handle surprisingly well for their size. If you want to improve the handling look for a rear swaybar (and the lower arms that go with it). The guys who've added one have said the ride is still plush but the car corners flatter.

If you want more power read the timing thread on V8-Buick it really is the key to waking up these engines and it uses the stock distributor. To take it to the next level there are people who specialize in rebuilding and tuning the Q-Jet. Getting the distributor and carb fine tuned will give you lots of power. There are books on rebuilding and tuning the carb but I think I'd leave that to the experts. You can go even further and the heads and exhaust manifolds ported. It looks completely stock but will flow much better. A mild cam, a gasket matched intake, ported heads and ported exhaust manifolds flowing into a good dual exhaust system with an x-pipe would have tons of power and still look completely stock.

You can make serious improvements in performance, and handling without any aftermarket parts.

John

[Trey]

making horsepower comes easy for me. fixing a dent on the other hand is a different story...lol

i completely understand what you are saying about frying tires, there is only so much power you can put to the ground on street tires. i have owned numerous street/drag cars over the years and have done most of the work myself. i was contemplating a rear sway bar, but im pretty happy the way it is and dont see the need for it now. i love the q-jet, and so far i have had real good luck on the rebuilding and tuning of them. so i doubt ill go with a different carb unless i decide to swap intakes. but if i do that then i got to swap the cam, and why do that if your not gonna port the heads, and while your at it...... well that gets out of hand with me real bad. i have a really really bad case of the "while im at it" disease. i had a 67 galaxy 390, 4spd, 3.50 posi. pulled the motor out to reseal it and give it some fresh paint(every gasket on the motor was leaking), while i was at it i cleaned and painted the inner fenders, while i was at it i figured id go ahead and pressure wash and repaint the frame, while i had it apart i might as well replace the clutch and all the motor and trans mounts, and while i was there i might as well do the u-joints, and if im gonna do all that i might as well freshen up the rear end, but if that was fresh i might as well rebuild the front end also....and that story goes on and on and on.. what should have been a weekend job turned into a 7 month dissassembly of the car. im gonna try real hard to not get into that rut on this ride.

exhaust is a must, this thing is way way too quiet with its stock system. plus its about as restrictive as it gets. im thinking some 2.25 pipe with a crossover and a nice set of magna flows, a good hei set up for the fire, and the required high flow k&n filter for the top. need to let this big boy breath before it will make any real good power. unless something goes really wrong, i wont be breaking a bolt on the engine, it will all be bolt on upgrades. i am of the same school you are following, dont change anything that cant be put back and dont throw away any good original parts. so there wont be any cutting or welding on the car. fat tires are a must, id love to find some 7" Rivy wheels for the rear, but like the big black convertible, i will just throw some 255's all the way around , white letters and all, and probably just leave it be at that. although i might have to test fit a 275 out back...lol

im on a pretty tight budget, so no matter how big my dream may be, for the next couple years i will just be focused on getting her running right, making sure everything works as it should, doing some mild modern upgrades for reliability, and enjoying the fact im driving the biggest damn muscle car they ever made...:0)

my buddy saw me going down the road on sunday, called me up and said i looked like a little kid behind the wheel of this car. now im 6'4" and 220 pounds, not too many cars make me look small...hahahaha

[Gum,beest]

Hi Trey
I was thinking in the same way as you right now
But after talking to the guys over here and realizing how rare my car was and the fact that i do have to do much bodywork
I let the thoughts of upgrading the engine and changing the paint scheme go
I did gave the engine an other ignition system and some colors i like in lieu of the standard red
Further more i intend to upgrade the suspension with PU bushings but nothing showing on the outside


on a good/bad side of all this, the over all absolute originality of this car has got me second guessing a modified build. i am by no means a purist, but on the same note, i am not the guy who would tear up a car that deserves a purist. this thing is about 99% rust free, only has one small parking dent, the ash tray has never been used, or the lighter, all signs point to the 35k on the clock being real original miles, nothing is missing, and everything but the clock works. she even has the air pump still hooked up and working.

And i bet if you pull your clock out of the dash and clean it it will work mine did

[73 Centurion]

If you have some salvage yards that still have older cars you might find the 7" rims on station wagons.

For all their size these cars are subtle. They get under your skin and don't let go!

John

[Trey]

man o man, who ever was in my carb last should never be allowed to work on a car again. there wasn't a tight screw in the whole thing. numerous tracks on the gaskets where fuel had been going where it wasn't supposed to and a couple carbon tracks between the 4 bores for the backfires i had threw the carb. when i got this thing the back butterfly's had been removed and were sitting in the ash tray. i thought this was the act of an idiot, and put them back on to only make the car run worse. played with it a bit here and there and got her running better, but still not like it should. so i broke down and bought a carb kit and went threw my carb yesterday after work. i see now why the butterflies off made it run better, the rear metering rods were not in there holes, they had been installed wrong on the little lever that hooks to the butterflies to control them, and rather then fall into the bores like they should, they were in crooked, beside the bores, and lifting the rear butterflies open slightly. this was allowing fuel to pretty much free flow threw the rear jets and down the throat of the manifold. this explains the fouled plugs (2 sets in 2 weeks). the idle screws were filthy, and one of the idle passages was all but clogged, and the tension spring on the rear butterflies was very very loose.

well shes all back together now and running much better. gonna put yet another fresh set of plugs in her later and that should solve the final issues im having. she still has a rough idle, so i think these plugs got toasted before the rebuild. but, cruising 70 shes smooth, the back barrels are now working, and you can tell when you floor it. it is a night and day difference with my rebuild on there versus what was there.

not sure if you guys have seen the new kits they sell for the quadrajet that plugs the rear jet well plugs. they are notorious for leaking, and up till now all i had seen is the little sponge you drop in that was supposed to seal them off but never really worked. now they have machined aluminum plugs with an o-ring seal. you file off the mushroom head, pop out the factory well plug and install these in its place. then the sponge plug is added to insure they cant ever back out. but as big a PITA as they were to get in, i don't see backing out as an issue. i got the part numbers and a few pics if any or you wanna check them out. definitely a great repair to an age old quadrajet problem.

[Trey]

ok, got a new problem. drove into town, and everything worked great, on the way home i had no blinkers. i mean absolutely nothing, no lights, no blinking, nothing. fuse is good, and so is the flasher, well im assuming the emergency flasher is the same as the blinkers. in any case, what would make them go totally dead that suddenly??

[Gum,beest]

Trey
I am fairly sure that the emergency flasher and the blinkers have separate relays
Did you check if you still have the emergency flashers

From the turn fuse (20amp hot in run ) follow the dark blue wire from the fuse box to the relay from the relay to the switch should be an purple wire this is the flasher
From the stop/hazard fuse (20amp hot at all times) follow the orange wire from the fuse box to the relay from the relay to the switch should be an brown wire this is the emergency flasher

taken from my Haynes repair manual

[centurion 455 ragtop]

Welcome aboard!

[Trey]

a few pics from work today, ok i was board and shes all clean so i couldnt help it...LOLOL

[Richard Dunn]

It looks great Trey

[Trey]

forgot to post on my blinker issue. just because a fuse "looks" good, does not mean it is. after hours of looking at everything else (after the fuse passed the visual check) i went back and ohmed the fuse block. seems the fuse was broken under the end cap and not down the middle as one would expect. im assuming this is just an age issue and the solder broke on the inside, BUT.... if i had ohmed the dang thing to start with i could have saved a few hours.

[Trey]

just a quick note... gotta put her up for sale, see my ad in the for sale section :0(